tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-106979752018-10-29T03:21:16.451-06:00I Am A Child Of TelevisionIn which I try to be a television critic, and to give my personal view of the medium. As the man said, I don't know anything about art but I know what I like.Brent McKeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14883838112004433045noreply@blogger.comBlogger1148125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10697975.post-20846292526078638522016-09-20T05:19:00.001-06:002016-09-20T05:19:54.839-06:00Mixed Results for The RulesWell that was an “interesting” Emmy Awards. There were enough surprises to make the alteration of the voting rules to a single round plurality rather than a ranked ballot majority seem like a “good thing” and yet it is hard not to say that things haven’t changed <i>that</i> much.<br /><br />Unlike a lot of people I was not in love with Jimmy Kimmel’s comedy stylings. There was some good stuff and then there was something like the intro of Bill Cosby that fell flat on it’s collective ass. The business with the peanut butter sandwiches seemed like it was recycled from the pizza delivery from a previous Oscar telecast. Like all of these things it was pretty hit and miss as far as I’m concerned. I think you have to ask why the comedy went on to the point where they had to eliminate the clips for the nominees in the Outstanding Actress in a Drama category.<br /><br />But of course what I really want to talk about is how well I did or didn’t do using my rules to predict the results. And the answer is that I was right 50% of the time. Which means I was wrong 50% of the time. That’s glass half empty/half full territory. Watching the show I was in the “glass half empty” camp, disappointed and wondering about the validity of my predictive model. Then I moved to the glass half full side with the realization that 50% is probably better than most people did in their pools. And besides in some cases it was a matter of interpretation.<br /><br />Let’s break things down.<br /><br /><b>Outstanding Supporting Actor Comedy</b><br />Predicted – Tony Hale, <i>Veep</i><br />Winner – Louie Anderson, <i>Baskets</i><br /><br />Okay, this is a big surprise. Hale was a two time winner on an HBO show and Anderson was on a show that was unknown to me which I probably wouldn’t watch even if I knew about it. I was at a point where I wasn’t aware that Louie Anderson was playing a woman in the show. Apparently the show, or at least his performance qualifies as a hot new thing though.<br /><br /><b>Outstanding Supporting Actress Comedy</b><br />Predicted – Allison Janney, <i>Mom</i><br />Winner – Kate McKinnon, <i>Saturday Night Live</i><br /><br />Another surprise, maybe bigger for me than the Tony Hale loss if ‘m being honest. I wasn`t aware of McKinnon because I don’t watch <i>SNL</i>, and I have a bit of a bias on this since she’s on a show that doesn’t compete in the Outstanding Comedy Series but rather in the Variety Sketch Series category where it lost to <i>Key &amp; Peele</i>. But there’s no category for performers in Variety Sketch series so there you go. I have a suspicion that this is a caegory where the change in the voting system came into play a bit.<br /><br /><b>Outstanding Supporting Actor Drama</b> <br />Predicted – Peter Dinklage, <i>Game Of Thrones</i> <br />Winner – Ben Mendelsohn, <i>Bloodline</i> <br />&nbsp; <br />I`m not sure but this may have surprised everyone. <i>Bloodline</i> isn`t one of the Netflix shows I watch, and given that they cancelled it after its upcoming third season apparently other people don`t watch it either (but who can tell with Netflix). Given that a lot of the talk around these Emmys was about how <i>Game Of Thrones</i> was going to dominate every category it was in, and that Peter Dinklage had won the category twice in the past, not to mention that Mendelsohn’s character was killed at the end of the first season and that much of his participation in the second season was through the medium of flashbacks I’m not sure it was outright predictable. <br />&nbsp; <br /><b>Outstanding Supporting Actress Drama</b> <br />Predicted – Lena Headey, <i>Game Of Thrones</i> <br />Winner – Maggie Smith, <i>Downton Abbey</i> <br />&nbsp; <br />I said at the beginning that I considered this one of the most wide open categories of the night and I was proven right. I went with Headey in the anticipation of a <i>Game Of Thrones</i> sweep given that the previous season’s winner Uzo Aduba not receiving a nomination. I also said however that the Academy could very well go with Maggie Smith for <i>Downton Abbey</i> on the grounds that it was the show’s last season. I think that having three women from Game of Thrones in the category probably resulted in vote splitting and that using the plurality versus the majority system may have killed any chance that a <i>Game of Thrones</i> actress could have won. And Kimmel’s bit about Smith not showing up and thus not being getting the Emmy? Not really funny. <br />&nbsp; <br /><b>Outstanding Lead Actor Comedy</b> <br />Predicted – Jeffrey Tambor, <i>Transparent</i> <br />Winner – Jeffrey Tambor, <i>Transparent</i> <br />&nbsp; <br />Got it right. And while Anthony Anderson might have done one of the best episodes of the season on <i>Black-ish</i> I don’t think there was much chance he was going to win. <br />&nbsp; <br /><b>Outstanding Lead Actress Comedy</b> <br />Predicted – Julia Louis-Dreyfus, <i>Veep</i> <br />Winner – Julia Louis-Dreyfus, <i>Veep</i><br /> <br /> Was there really any doubt?<br /> <br /> <b>Outstanding Lead Actor Drama</b> <br />Predicted – Rami Malek, <i>Mr Robot</i><br /> Winner – Rami Malek, <i>Mr Robot</i><br /> <br /> Maybe my best pick of the lot. No past winner (for the same part) in the category and no one from an HBO show. <i>Mr Robot </i>was the recipient of a <i>lot</i> of critical buzz and Malek is a young guy. Wasn’t surprised to see him win, won’t be surprised to see him repeat unless something big shows up next year.<br /> <br /> <b>Outstanding Lead Actress Drama</b><br /> Predicted – Viola Davis, <i>How To Get Away With Murder</i><br /> Winner – Tatiana Maslany, <i>Orphan Black</i><br /> <br /> Every so often yo go to the track and the longshot comes in and you cheer even though you had your money on one of the favourites because it is just such a great story. So happy to see Tatiana win (and not just because she’s from Saskatchewan) inspite of all the obstacles in her way: going up against a previous winner, being on a science fiction-y show like <i>Orphan Black</i>, being on a show on a small network. The fact that she plays multiple characters (the clones) each very different in speech, character and even appearance is a bravura performance that thankfully wasn’t overlooked.<br /> <br /> <b>Outstanding Lead Actress Drama</b><br /> Predicted – <i>Veep</i><br /> Winner – <i>Veep</i><br /> I know that some people complained afterwards that <i>Black-ish</i> was the best comedy on network TV and was robbed of the award, but is anyone really shocked or that unhappy that <i>Veep</i> won? I mean anyone who doesn’t work on the show…or for ABC?<br /> <br /> <b>Outstanding Drama Series</b><br /> Predicted – <i>Game Of Thrones</i><br /> Winner – <i>Game of Thrones</i><br /> <br /> Anyone really surprised with this result? Spectacle with good writing wins every time.<br /> <br /> <b>Extra categories:</b> I didn’t predicted these “officially” but I did nail them. In the Outstanding Variety Talk Show category I mentioned that there’s a big gap left by the departure of Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert’s migration to CBS to host <i>The Late Show</i> in terms of doing political hunour. Of the nominees in the category only <i>Last Week Tonight with John Oliver </i>really filled that niche, so an easy pick. As was Limited Series categories. I predicted “Based on everything I’ve heard, expect a lot of awards for the cast writers and directors of <i>The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story</i> before its eventual coronation.” <i>The People v. O.J. Simpson</i> won for Writing, Supporting Actor, Lead Actor and Lead Actress before winning Outstanding Limited Series. The only Limited Series categories it didn’t win were Supporting Actress (where no one from the series was nominated) and Directing.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Brent McKeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14883838112004433045noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10697975.post-87169342984621358252016-09-17T04:24:00.000-06:002016-09-17T04:27:54.093-06:002016 Emmy Awards – By The Rules<a href="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-KUevXl9D0DI/V90ZK61c3CI/AAAAAAAAGTU/DSO5gRwkwT0/s1600-h/emmys%25255B5%25255D.jpg"><img align="left" alt="emmys" border="0" height="199" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-4euBkGSEYdo/V90ZLfFVb-I/AAAAAAAAGTY/PnO4ZxCgGcQ/emmys_thumb%25255B2%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" style="background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; border-right: 0px; border-top: 0px; display: inline; float: left; margin: 0px 14px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" title="emmys" width="258" /></a>Or as it should probably be known: the night that a broadcast network gives up three hours at the start of the season to honour cable and streaming TV – particularly HBO. It’s true. Cable and streaming TV will take away most of the awards on Sunday night. Of the 63 nominees in the ten categories I look at here, twelve are on broadcast TV and of those twelve, four of the nominees are dramas only two of those are from a commercial network (as opposed to PBS). But debating the merits of having commercial network TV running a party for cable isn’t up for debate here. Picking winners is. <br />&nbsp; <br />I’m going to try to predict this year’s Emmy awards “scientifically” using four basic rules. Two of the rules are Positive, one is Negative, and one is what I guess you could call Neutral or Preferential. There’s also a fifth rule that’s not yet proven. These predictions are based on things I’ve observed about the Emmys from long before I started this Blog and even before I had the Internet. <br />&nbsp; <br />There is one thing that could disrupt “The Rules” and that is that the Emmy have adopted a new voting system. In the past they have used a “preferential ballot” in which the voters ranked the nominees from your favourite to your least favourite of the nominees. In tabulating the results the votes were counted and the show with the least number of first choice ballots was eliminated. The votes from that show were redistributed to the voters‘&nbsp; second choices, and so on until one show had 50% of the vote. The Academy has switched to a plurality system (or “first past the post” as we call it in Canada) where voters pick the show they want to see win in the category and vote for it. The show with the most votes wins outright even if, in a six-way race they have 17% of the vote and the other five shows have a total 16.6% each. What this will mean to the Emmys is yet to be proven, but I’m predicting (hoping for actually) limited change. <br />&nbsp; <br />So what are these rules? They’re actually pretty simple: <br /><b></b>&nbsp; <br /><b>Rule 1: <i>Winners win….until you know, they don’t.</i></b> <br />The Emmys are unique among entertainment awards shows in that the same show or people can win year after year. The equivalent at the Oscars would be for last year’s Best Picture winner to win again this year. It doesn’t happen at the Tonys, the Grammys or the Oscars, just the Emmys and any other awards show that touches on TV. And the Emmys tend to give awards to previous season’s winners. <br /><b></b>&nbsp; <br /><b>Rule 2: <i>The “Hot New Thing” can overturn previous season’s winners, but it’s the academy that decide what the hot new thing is.</i></b> <br />Funny thing about the TV awards. The people who choose the nominees and who vote for the winners don’t actually watch a hell of a lot of TV. TV critics (the pros) watch a lot of TV but the people at the TV academy are too busy working making TV shows to actually watch TV shows on a regular basis. What they know about what’s hot and what’s not is generally based on ratings and buzz and whatever&nbsp; they decide is “quality” TV this year. <br /><b></b>&nbsp; <br /><b>Rule 3:</b> <b><i>Premium cable trumps basic cable which trumps broadcast TV.</i></b> <br />And by premium cable I mean HBO. This year HBO had 40 nominations, while Showtime had nine and Cinemax (!) had one. Those 40 nominations for HBO were greater than ABC, CBS, FOX, and NBC combined although when you factor PBS into the mix it is greater. We don’t know yet were streaming video factors into this except to say that while they get more nominations than The CW, Amazon and Netflix have had very limited success. <br /><b></b>&nbsp; <br /><b>Rule 4: <i>Fantasy and Science Fiction don’t win… unless they come from HBO.</i></b> <br />In fact Fantasy and Science Fiction shows almost never get nominations unless they’re on HBO. <i>Battlestar Galactica</i> may have been one of the best shows on all of TV during its run but never earned a Primetime Emmy nomination. Creative Arts Emmys sure, but not Emmy’s from Writing, Directing or Acting, let alone Outstanding Drama Series which are the categories being awarded on Sunday. <br />&nbsp; <br />Let’s take a look at the series and acting categories and apply the rules. I’ll put the rule number that applies to the person or show beside their name. Previously nominated shows are marked with a *. As an added bonus I’ve found the odds that are being offered on the various nominees in the major categories (which is to say not the supporting categories) from a number of online sites that are offering Emmy bets. They are BetFred, 888Sports, William Hill, Unibet, and 32Red. I’l try to give an average of what they say with odds of the favourite in italics. <br />&nbsp; <br />So who is going to get the chance to pay $400 to buy the trophy that they “won” (that’s right, the Emmys charge the winners the cost of manufacturing the Emmys if they actually want to take it home with them – cheap bastards)? <br />&nbsp; <br /><b>Outstanding Supporting Actor Comedy</b> <br /><ul><li>Louis Anderson, <i>Baskets</i>, FX </li><li>Andre Braugher, <i>Brooklyn Nine-Nine</i>, FOX * </li><li>Titus Burgess, <i>Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt</i>, Netflix * </li><li>Ty Burrell, <i>Modern Family</i>, ABC * (1a) </li><li>Tony Hale, <i>Veep</i>, HBO * (1,3)&nbsp; </li><li>Keegan-Michael Key, <i>Key and Peele</i>, Comedy Central * </li><li>Matt Walsh, <i>Veep</i>, HBO (3)</li></ul>So here we have a category with two “new” faces (I really can’t think of Louie Anderson as “new”) two broadcast shows, and no “hot new thing.” Last season’s winner Tony Hale is here as is previous winner in this category Ty Burrell. As much as I like Titus Burgess, he’s out of the “hot new thing” group. As much as I like Andre Braugher, a win on his part would be a huge upset. Ty Burrell is the only cast member from Modern Family to be nominated this year in a category that once was almost entirely made up of people from that show. At this stage I see a win by him as an incredible long-shot. Give it to Tony Hale again.<br /><br /><b>Outstanding Supporting Actress Comedy</b><br /><ul><li>Anna Chlumsky, <i>Veep</i>, HBO (3) * </li><li>Gaby Hoffman, <i>Transparent</i>, Amazon * </li><li>Allison Janney, <i>Mom</i>, CBS * (1) </li><li>Judith Light, <i>Transparent</i>, Amazon </li><li>Kate McKinnon, <i>Saturday Night Live</i>, NBC * </li><li>Niecy Nash, <i>Getting On</i>, HBO (3)*</li></ul>Saying that Allison Janney will win in this category goes against every principle of The Rules, but it may prompt a special “supporting categories rule” namely that if an actress is nominated in a “Supporting” category for playing a role that is essentially a lead role they have a leg up on anyone else in the category. Except for Judith Light, everyone nominated here has been beaten by Janney – twice in the case of McKinnon and Chlumsky. There’s no hot new thing in this category so just give it to Janney again.<br /><br />&nbsp;<b>Outstanding Supporting Actor Drama</b><br /><ul><li>Jonathan Banks, <i>Better Call Saul</i>, AMC * </li><li>Peter Dinklage, <i>Game of Thrones</i>, HBO * (1, 3) </li><li>Kit Harrington, <i>Game of Thrones</i>, HBO (3) </li><li>Michael Kelly, <i>House of Cards</i>, Netflix * </li><li>Ben Mendelsohn, <i>Bloodline</i>, Netflix * </li><li>Jon Voigt, <i>Ray Donovan</i>, Showtime</li></ul>For the most part this is the same group that Peter Dinklage beat last year. The only additions are Jon Voigt and Kit Harrington. Voigt is a good actor, but the Emmys tend to ignore movie stars in most cases – see Kevin Spacey and Matthew McConaughey as examples of actors who were supposed to set the Emmys on fire and ended up taking home nothing. And speaking of Spacey, I fear that if <i>House of Cards</i> hasn’t won an Emmy by now the chances are pretty slim for anyone on that series. As for Harrington, the past season of <i>Game of Thrones</i> has been pretty heavy on Jon Snow, but the fact is that I’ve always found Dinklage as Tyrion Lannister a more fascinating character. Dinklage for the win unless of course having two actors from the series leads to vote splitting under the new rules. But I honestly don’t think it’s likely.<br /><br /><b>Outstanding Supporting Actress Drama</b><br /><ul><li>Emilia Clarke, <i>Game of Thrones</i>, HBO * (3) </li><li>Lena Headey, <i>Game of Thrones</i>, HBO * (3) </li><li>Maggie Smith, <i>Downton Abbey</i>, PBS (1a) </li><li>Maura Tierney, <i>The Affair</i>, Showtime </li><li>Maisie Williams, <i>Game of Thrones</i>, HBO (3) </li><li>Constance Zimmer, <i>Unreal</i>, Lifetime (2)</li></ul>Maybe the hardest category in this whole thing to pick based on The Rules…or even picked on merit. Last year’s winner, Uzo Aduba (<i>Orange Is The New Black</i>), wasn’t nominated. Only two of the actresses who were nominated last year were nominated again this year (Emilia Clark, and Lena Headey) because <i>Mad Men</i> and <i>The Good Wife</i> have gone off the air and last year’s Downton Abbey actress was replaced by the only previous winner in this category, Dame Maggie Smith. You have three newcomers in this category. Oh yeah and half of the nominees are from HBO’s <i>Game of Thrones</i>. The closest thing to a “hot new thing” is <i>Unreal</i>, and if pushed I suppose you could make a case for Constance Zimmerman because it’s an inside TV series and it skewers Reality TV and most of the creative types – in particular actors – are down with that. I could very easily see Magge Smith getting the Emmy because it was the last season of <i>Downton Abbey</i>. However, I’d put the bulk of my money on any of the women of <i>Game of Thrones</i>, and because I have to say something here, I’m picking Lena Headey over Emilia Clarke and Maisie Williams. Cersei Lannister is just such a deliciously evil character that I find it hard to bet against the actress who plays her, if only out of fear that the Emmy venue might be swallowed up in wildfire if she doesn’t win. (joking)<br /><br /><b></b> <b>Outstanding Lead Actor Comedy</b><br /><ul><li>Anthony Anderson, <i>Black-ish</i>, ABC 5/1 odds * </li><li>Aziz Ansari, <i>Master of None</i>, Netflix 3/1 odds (2) </li><li>Will Forte, <i>The Last Man on Earth</i>, FOX 20/1 odds * </li><li>William H. Macy, <i>Shameless</i>, Showtime 14/1 * </li><li>Thomas Middleditch, <i>Silicon Valley</i>, HBO, 12/1 odds (3) </li><li>Jeffrey Tambor, <i>Transparent</i>, Amazon, <i>1/2 odds</i> * (1)</li></ul>One of the categories where there might possibly be an upset. The HBO factor isn’t as great in comedy as it is in drama, and <i>Black-ish</i> had some much talked about episodes that might be persuasive to some members of the academy. However I think it really comes down to the two streaming series, Jeffrey Tambor in <i>Transparent</i> and Aziz Ansari in <i>Master of None</i>. As I’ve mentioned here, I’ve seen about five minutes of <i>Masters of None</i> before I stopped watching and despite the huge critical buzz, including some from some professional critics that I really like, I haven’t gone back. The rules – and the oddsmakers – say Tambor, but I think I’ll out on a limb here and predict Aziz Ansari will get the upset win.<br /><br /><b>Outstanding Lead Actress Comedy</b><br /><ul><li>Ellie Kemper, <i>The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt</i>, Neflix 3/1 odds&nbsp; </li><li>Julia Louis-Dreyfus, <i>Veep</i>, HBO * <i>1/2 odds</i> (1) </li><li>Laurie Metcalfe, <i>Getting On</i>, HBO 20/1 odds (3) </li><li>Tracee Ellis Ross, <i>Black-ish</i>, ABC 14/1 odds </li><li>Amy Schumer, <i>Inside Amy Schumer</i>, Comedy Central 13/2 odds * </li><li>Lily Tomlin, <i>Grace and Frankie</i>, Netflix 13/2 odds * </li></ul>I’m just going to say it – give Julia Louis-Dreyfus the Emmy as she walks down the red carpet. You don’t need to open the envelope except as a formality. It’s not that I don’t think the others are unworthy. I watch <i>Grace and Frankie</i> and I think that Lily Tomlin is brilliant on that show (although I have to give credit her chemisty with Jane Fonda as part of it). It’s just that Julia Louis-Dreyfus nails it on <i>Veep</i> and it’s difficult to beat the incumbent when she’s also quite good. I don’t see anyone on this list who can challenge her.<br /><br /><b></b> <b>Outstanding Lead Actor Drama</b><br /><ul><li>Kyle Chandler, <i>Bloodline</i>, Netflix 10/1 to 12/1 odds * </li><li>Rami Malek, <i>Mr Robot</i>, USA <i>13/8 to 5/4 odds</i> (2) </li><li>Bob Odenkirk, <i>Better Call Saul</i>, AMC 9/2 to 8/1 odds * </li><li>Matthew Riis, <i>The Americans</i>, FX 2/1 to 8/1 odds FX </li><li>Liev Schreiber, <i>Ray Donovan</i>, Showtime 30/1 to 33/1 odds * </li><li>Kevin Spacey, <i>House of Cards</i>, Netflix 13/8 to 7/4 odds*</li></ul>You may have noticed that I recorded the odds differently. That’s because the oddsmakers were all over the place here. Last year’s winner and the winner from several years before were both on shows that ended their runs. There’s no one from an HBO show in the category. The result is that the odds makers can’t agree on a likely winner in this category. They seem to agree that Schreiber and Chandler are outside shots, but Odenkirk ranges from 4.5/1 to 8/1 while Matthew Riis is anywhere from 2/1 to 8/1. For a while some of the oddsmakers were considering Kevin Spacey a lock, but then the odds on Rami Malek kept getting better and better to the point where it was either favourite or co-favourite with Spacey. Given that Mr. Robot is “the hot new thing” and has received a lot of buzz from the critics, I’m giving the edge to Rami Malek.<br /><br /><b>Outstanding Lead Actress Drama</b><br /><ul><li>Claire Danes, <i>Homeland</i>, Showtime * 5/1 odds (1a) </li><li>Viola Davis, <i>How to Get Away with Murder</i>, ABC 3/2 odds * (1) </li><li>Taraji P. Henson, <i>Empire</i>, FOX 12/1 odds * </li><li>Tatiana Maslany, <i>Orphan Black</i>, BBC America 20/1 odds * (4) </li><li>Kerry Russell, <i>The Americans</i>, FX 4/1 odds&nbsp; </li><li>Robin Wright, <i>House of Cards</i>, Netflix <i>7/4 odds</i> *</li></ul>This is a category that the oddsmakers are getting wrong. They have made Robin Wright the odds on favourite to win this category while almost totally ignoring last season’s winner Viola Davis. The Rules seem to put Davis in a strong position. There is no HBO series in the mix here, and while there are two basic cable series and a Showtime series represented – and the star of the Showtime series, Claire Danes has won in the past – none of them qualify in the “hot new thing” category. Worst of all for Tatiana Maslany (for whom I have a sentimental rooting interest in; she’s from Saskatchewan originally – even if it is Regina) she triggers the dreaded Rule 4 by being in a science fiction series. She has no more chance of winning than an actor from a CW show has of getting nominated. As strong as Robin Wright’s performance apparently is (I don’t watch the show), she’s been nominated twice before and hasn’t delivered. Unless the voting changes alter things significantly I don’t see her getting it this time either.<br /><br /><b></b> <b>Outstanding Comedy Series</b><br /><ul><li><i>Black-ish</i>, ABC 14/1 odds </li><li><i>Master of None</i>, Netflix 6/1 odds (2) </li><li><i>Modern Family, </i>ABC 20/1 odds* (1a) </li><li><i>Silicon Valley</i>, HBO 30/1 odds * (3) </li><li><i>Transparent</i>, Amazon 10/1 odds * </li><li><i>Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt</i>, Netflix 10/1 odds * </li><li><i>Veep</i>, HBO <i>1/3 odds</i> * (1)</li></ul>I’ve seen a certain amount of speculation that <i>Black-ish</i> could be a contender based on the episode they submitted, but looking at things realistically the most likely outcome is yet another win for <i>Veep</i>. And while many may consider <i>Black-ish</i> to be a challenger, my longshot in this category is this season’s “hot new thing” <i>Master of None</i>. I don’t think it <i>will</i> win, but I do think it is the show most likely to win if <i>Veep</i> doesn’t.<br /><br /><b>Outstanding Drama Series</b><br /><ul><li><i>The Americans</i>, FX 10/1 odds </li><li><i>Better Call Saul</i>, AMC 40/1 odds * </li><li><i>Downton Abbey</i>, PBS 30/1 odds* (1a) </li><li><i>Game of Thrones</i>, HBO <i>1/3 odds</i> * (1, 3) </li><li><i>Homeland</i>, Showtime 14/1 odds * (1a) </li><li><i>House of Cards</i>, Netflix 20/1 odds * </li><li><i>Mr. Robot</i>, AMC 3/1 odds (2)</li></ul>There are three recent winners in this category, one of which is a sentimental favourite because it’s the show’s last season. Sometimes that’s enough to get a show like <i>Downton Abbey</i> a win just as a recognition of how good and beloved the show was. It doesn’t always work out that way of course. Some shows that are acknowledged as being truly great have gone their entire runs with plenty of nominations but no wins. And let’s not even talk about shows like <i>Battlestar Galactica</i> that don’t even get a nomination for anything. I don’t think Downton Abbey will pull it out this time around simely because I can’t see it beating <i>Game of Thrones</i>, which has intrigue, blood, beautiful naked people, and dragons (and also a superlative cast, high production values and a great story of course). I at least think better of Downton Abbey’s chances than the odds makers who made it at 30/1 longshot. <i>Mr. Robot</i> get’s my nod for having a distinct chance of breaking through as a “hot new thing” but that would have been more likely to pay off in a year without <i>Game of Thrones</i>.<br /><br />A couple of final parting shots on categories that I don’t cover largely because The Rules don’t apply. Outstanding Variety Talk Show is going to be interesting for the first time in years because <i>The Colbert Report</i> and <i>The Daily Show with Jon Stewart</i> aren’t around to be nominated any more. Interestingly The Late Show with Stephen Colbert was the only one of the three 11:30 p.m. talk shows not to be nominated. Given America’s taste for political humour in this category I expect the Emmy to go to <i>Last Week Tonight with John Oliver</i>.<br /><br />As to the Outstanding Limited Series, it and the Television Movie category are the one area where the Emmys are most similar to the Oscars. In most cases a limited series is just that; it plays out over a number of episodes in a single season and generally doesn’t reappear over and over again, although shows like <i>Fargo</i> and <i>American Crime</i> contradict this notion. In this category if you don’t see the nominated shows, you really have to look for the show that has the most buzz. If/when you find it you will also find that it tends to monopolize the awards in all of the subsidiary categories for Limited Series and Television Movies. Based on everything I’ve heard, expect a lot of awards for the cast writers and directors of <i>The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story</i> before its eventual coronation.<br /><br />The <strike>cheap bastards</strike> Television Academy awards the Emmys Sunday night on ABC (charging people to keep an award they’ve “won” – it sounds like something Donald Trump would think up).<br />Brent McKeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14883838112004433045noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10697975.post-82244289863596957402016-08-01T04:11:00.000-06:002016-08-01T04:11:37.835-06:00I’m A Republican (And I Didn’t Even Know It)I’m a pretty liberal kind of guy. I vote for the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Democratic_Party">NDP</a> (I’m Canadian) and I take for granted things like single payer government health care, gun control and allowing Syrian refugees to immigrate into Canada. However, according to a survey done by E-Poll market research, my TV viewing shows that I am a raging Republican who should be wearing a Trump-Pence T-shirt and be denouncing Ted Cruz for not endorsing the party’s nominee at the convention. Well at least I can get that part right, although probably not for the same reasons as a “real” Republican.<br /><br />The <a href="http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/which-tv-shows-do-republicans-and-democrats-rate-the-highest-300301143.html">E-Poll Market Research Poll</a> listed the Top Ten shows preferred by people self-identifying as Democrats and Republicans. According to the methodology section of the survey’s report:<br /><br /><div align="center"><i>E-Score analyzed more than 750 prime time broadcast, cable and streaming programs among Americans of voting age whose political affiliation is either Republican or Democrat and ranked the results for shows described as "One of My Favorites" by each group.</i> </div><div align="center"><i>E-Score Programs is a monthly tracking survey that measures awareness, viewing and perceptions of more than 3,000 US television programs. Surveys are conducted monthly among a representative sample of US viewers with 1,200 respondents per show.</i></div><div align="center"><i>&nbsp;</i> </div>I’m not entirely sure how this particular survey was conducted but I suspect it wasn’t under the most rigourous conditions. Nevertheless it did come up with some interesting results. <br />&nbsp; <br />Here is a table of the shows preferred by Republicans (in <span style="color: red;">Red</span>) and Democrats (in <span style="color: blue;">Blue</span>). Shows in <span style="color: #9b00d3;">Purple</span> are in the top ten lists of both parties. The shows that I watch regularly are in italics.<br /><br /><div align="center"><b><span style="color: blue;">Democrats </span>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <span style="color: red;">Republicans</span></b> </div><div align="center"><table align="center" border="2" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" style="width: 544px;"> <tbody><tr> <td valign="top" width="51">Rank</td> <td valign="top" width="204">Show</td> <td valign="top" width="66">Network</td> <td valign="top" width="151">Show</td> <td valign="top" width="68">Network</td></tr><tr> <td valign="top" width="54">1</td> <td valign="top" width="204"><span style="color: blue;">Game Of Thrones</span></td> <td valign="top" width="66">HBO</td> <td valign="top" width="149"><span style="color: #9b00d3;">Supernatural</span></td> <td valign="top" width="71">CW</td></tr><tr> <td valign="top" width="56">2</td> <td valign="top" width="204"><span style="color: blue;">The Haves and the Have Nots</span></td> <td valign="top" width="66">OWN</td> <td valign="top" width="148"><span style="color: #9b00d3;">The Walking Dead</span></td> <td valign="top" width="73">AMC</td></tr><tr> <td valign="top" width="57">3</td> <td valign="top" width="204"><span style="color: #9b00d3;">Supernatural</span></td> <td valign="top" width="66">CW</td> <td valign="top" width="147"><i><span style="color: red;">Scorpion</span></i></td> <td valign="top" width="74">CBS</td></tr><tr> <td valign="top" width="58">4</td> <td valign="top" width="204"><i><span style="color: #9b00d3;">The Big Bang Theory</span></i></td> <td valign="top" width="66">CBS</td> <td valign="top" width="146"><i><span style="color: red;">Arrow</span></i></td> <td valign="top" width="75">CW</td></tr><tr> <td valign="top" width="59">5</td> <td valign="top" width="204"><span style="color: blue;">Suits</span></td> <td valign="top" width="66">USA</td> <td valign="top" width="146"><i><span style="color: red;">The Flash</span></i></td> <td valign="top" width="76">CW</td></tr><tr> <td valign="top" width="59">6</td> <td valign="top" width="204"><span style="color: #9b00d3;">The Walking Dead</span></td> <td valign="top" width="66">AMC</td> <td valign="top" width="146"><i><span style="color: #9b00d3;">The Big Bang Theory</span></i></td> <td valign="top" width="76">CBS</td></tr><tr> <td valign="top" width="59">7</td> <td valign="top" width="204"><span style="color: blue;">How To Get Away With Murder</span></td> <td valign="top" width="66">ABC</td> <td valign="top" width="146"><i><span style="color: red;">NCIS</span></i></td> <td valign="top" width="76">CBS</td></tr><tr> <td valign="top" width="59">8</td> <td valign="top" width="204"><span style="color: blue;">Doctor Who</span></td> <td valign="top" width="66">BBCA</td> <td valign="top" width="146"><i><span style="color: red;">Blue Bloods</span></i></td> <td valign="top" width="76">CBS</td></tr><tr> <td valign="top" width="59">9</td> <td valign="top" width="204"><span style="color: blue;">Empire</span></td> <td valign="top" width="66">FOX</td> <td valign="top" width="146"><span style="color: red;">Grimm</span></td> <td valign="top" width="76">NBC</td></tr><tr> <td valign="top" width="59">10</td> <td valign="top" width="204"><span style="color: blue;">Nashville</span></td> <td valign="top" width="66">ABC</td> <td valign="top" width="148"><span style="color: red;">Last Man Standing</span></td> <td valign="top" width="78">ABC</td></tr></tbody></table></div><br />Fifty percent of the shows that I watch are exclusively on the Republican list, while the only Democratic show that I watch is actually bipartisan. Ergo, I am a Republican. Heaven help me. There’s probably a reason for this which I’ll get into later. <br />&nbsp; <br />The poll offers some findings, the validity of which I’m not sure I can get behind but here they are. <br />Democrats prefer programs that are:<br /> <ul><li>Sexy: The top three shows described by Democrats as “sexy” were <i>Game Of Thrones</i>, <i>The Haves and the Have Nots</i>, <i>Suits</i> </li><li>Edgy </li><li>Emotionally involving </li><li>Ethnically diverse or have strong characters: 3 of the top 10 shows: <i>The Haves and the Have Nots</i>, <i>How to Get Away with Murder</i>, and <i>Empire</i> all have a racially diverse cast and have powerful lead roles for women. This reflects the Democratic viewer who is also typically more diverse, with higher concentration of black and female supporters. </li></ul>Republicans prefer programs that are:<br /> <ul><li>Family-friendly: Half of the top ten shows on the Rebuplican list had more than 25% of respondents describing the shows as "Family Friendly" and air on broadcast television. </li><li>Funny: Although there are only two outright comedies on the Republican list and one of those is also on the Democratic list. </li><li>Plot driven or have storylines that involve "good vs. evil": Republicans enjoy clearer "good vs. evil" characters and storylines. They prefer shows featuring superheroes like <i>The Flash</i>, <i>Arrow</i> and the super intelligent team on <i>Scorpion</i>. Two procedural programs – <i>NCIS</i> and <i>Blue Bloods</i> – also have the "good vs. evil" component, as well as skewing slightly older than some other programs in the list.</li></ul><br /> So here’s what I take from the data as presented:<br /> <ul><li>Republicans prefer the broadcast networks almost exclusively – nine of the ten shows on the Republican list are on broadcast networks. The exception is The <i>Walking Dead</i> which is on AMC. By contrast half of the shows on the Democratic list are on broadcast, and one show <i>Game Of Thrones</i> is on premium cable. </li><li>Republicans prefer shows that are “one and done”; in other words shows where the primary focus is not on a continuing arc, although such an arc may exist in a secondary or tertiary focus. Only one show that the Republican list has an ongoing story arc. At least half of the shows on the Democratic list have ongoing story arcs as a primary focus (<i>Game Of Thrones</i>, <i>The Haves and the Have Nots</i>, <i>Walking Dead</i>, <i>How To Get Away With Murder</i>, <i>Doctor Who</i>, <i>Empire</i>, and <i>Nashville</i>). </li><li>The question of diversity is an interesting one. The Democratic list has probably the more diverse group, with <i>The Haves and the Have Nots</i>, <i>How To Get Away With Murder</i> and <i>Empire </i>either having a predominantly African-American cast or African-American leads, while <i>How To Get Away With Murder</i> and <i>Nashville</i> have female leads. None of the shows on the Republican list have African-Americans in leading roles, and of the shows that I watch on the Republican list, <i>Scorpion</i>, <i>The Big Bang Theory</i>, and <i>Blue Bloods</i> don’t have any African-Americans in their regular cast (I can’t speak to the shows I don’t watch). But is that an indictment of the taste of Republicans or is it a problem with the casting of these shows. </li><li>The “law and order” shows. This is a bit of a stretch, but there’s a high percentage of shows that deal with “law and order” in the Republican list. <i>NCIS</i> and <i>Blue Bloods </i>are both overtly about law enforcement; <i>NCIS</i> is about a law enforcement agency while <i>Blue Bloods</i> is about a family of New York cops, including the police commissioner. <i>Scorpion</i> is about what are essentially private contractors working for the Department of Homeland Security. The lead characters in <i>Grimm</i> are cops dealing with supernatural threats, while the leads in <i>The Flash</i> and <i>Arrow</i> are costumed vigilantes working with the police. I think you could even argue that the characters in <i>Supernatural</i> are involved in some sort of protective operation, while <i>The Walking Dead</i> shows what happens after order breaks down.</li></ul><br /> So that explains, or at least investigates some aspects of the lists. So why do I watch the “Republican” shows that I do? Well <i>Arrow</i> and <i>The Flash</i> are easy. I’ve been a DC Comics fanboy since I was old enough to connect the words and the pictures together. DC, not Marvel. For some reason Spiderman and the Fantastic Four never did it for me. As for <i>Blue Bloods</i> and <i>NCIS</i>, that’s a bit more complicated. I’ve been a fan of both Mark Harmon and Tom Selleck since Selleck did <i>Magnum</i> and Harmon did, well probably <i>Centennial </i>(so not his earliest work in other words; I’m sure I never saw <i>Sam</i> and probably missed <i>240-Robert </i>and I know I avaoided <i>Flamingo Road</i> on general principle). They were my gateways into their current shows but I’ve stayed because I really like the shows. I like the ensemble cast in <i>NCIS</i> and the way they’ve expanded the Gibbs character to give him a reason for being how he is. I like the ensemble cast in <i>Blue Bloods</i> as well and the fact that the show makes the personal, family lives of the characters not only visible but vital to the show, in repudiation of the Dick Wolf/<i>Law &amp; Order</i> formula in which the characters have no lives outside of work – or at least no lives that we are permitted to know much about. In a way <i>Blue Bloods</i> is a family drama that just happens to be about a family of cops.<br /> <br /> The reasons why I don’t watch more “Democratic” shows are a bit more complicated. <i>Game of Thrones</i> is of course on a premium channel although this summer, to coincide with the Olympics, CTV will air the complete first season – uncut – on broadcast TV. The <i>Haves and the Have Nots</i> doesn’t air up here, even though we have our own Oprah Winfrey Network here in Canada. <i>Suits</i> is another basic cable show in the US that I might like if I saw it, but the ways shows like that air in Canada it’s very difficult for me to find where and when it is on. I gave up on <i>How To Get Away With Murder </i>early in the second season when I came to the conclusion that there was absolutely no one on that show that I had any sympathy or empathy for. The subject matter of <i>Nashville</i> simply doesn’t interest me, Pretty much the same thing is true about <i>Empire</i>, and while I tried the first episode of <i>Supernatural</i> (and it has featured one of my favourite character actors, Jim Beaver, who is a scholar and a gentleman in so many ways) I had no desire to stick with it. (By the way, is it just me or are <i>Supernatural</i> and G<i>rimm</i> basically the same show?) As for <i>Doctor Who</i>, I love the series but I share my TV with someone who loathes it, and as most politicians eventually learn – though I’m not sure about some Replublicans in recent years – you’ve got to go along to git along, so I don’t get to see <i>Doctor Who</i>.<br /> <br /> So there you have it. My viewing habits say that I’m a Republican, even though I’m just Canadian. <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Brent McKeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14883838112004433045noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10697975.post-78664649697333077162016-05-20T04:42:00.004-06:002016-05-20T04:51:54.947-06:00CBS Upfronts 2016-17<a href="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-yn7bcP5IYKw/Vz7pijflcEI/AAAAAAAAF1w/cS5-MKtDPqg/s1600-h/cbslogo200%25255B2%25255D.jpg"><img align="right" alt="cbslogo200" border="0" height="203" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-DN2MXiqpDAw/Vz7pjGafEbI/AAAAAAAAF10/r9uK-k-7qn4/cbslogo200_thumb.jpg?imgmax=800" style="background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; border-right: 0px; border-top: 0px; display: inline; float: right; margin: 0px 0px 12px 12px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" title="cbslogo200" width="204" /></a>Well hopefully this will post properly without devestating the FOX upfronts post or destroying the multiverse.<br /><br />CBS is the most viewed TV network in the United States, although there are those who say that that doesn’t matter since their appeal to the lower part of the 18-49 demographic isn’t great. Unlike last year, when CBS introduced <i>Supergirl</i> to appeal to that part of the demographic (since superheroes and comic book based shows are doing well on The CW), the network doesn’t really seem to be making a huge effort to latch on to the Millennials. In fact they’ve even exiled last year’s “great young hope” to The CW. Yes, <i>Supergirl</i>, which did decent but not spectacular ratings number has gone to play with <i>The Flash</i>, <i>Arrow</i>, <i>Legends of Tomorrow</i> at The CW (and in Vancouver). Also missing but not yet dead is <i>Limitless</i> which CBS is hoping to relocate to some other network. Coincidentally I liked both of these shows. Oh well.<br /><br /><span style="color: red;"><b>Cancelled</b></span><br /><i>Angel From Hell</i>, <i>CSI: Cyber</i>, <i>The Good Wife</i>, <i>Mike &amp; Molly</i>, <i>Person Of Interest</i>, <i>Rush Hour</i><br /><br /><b><span style="color: red;">Renewed</span></b><br /><i>2 Broke Girls</i>, <i>48 Hours</i>, <i>60 Minutes</i>, <i>The Amazing Race</i>, <i>The Big Bang Theory</i>, <i>Blue Bloods</i>, <i>Code Black</i>, <i>Criminal Minds</i>, <i>Criminal Minds: Beyond Borders</i>, <i>Elementary</i>, <i>Hawaii Five-0</i>, <i>Life In Pieces</i>, <i>Madam Secretary</i>, <i>Mom</i>, <i>NCIS</i>, <i>NCIS: Los Angeles</i>, <i>NCIS: New Orleans</i>, <i>The Odd Couple</i>, <i>Scorpion</i>, <i>Survivor</i>, <i>Thursday Night Football</i>, <i>Undercover Boss</i><br /><br /><span style="color: red;"><b>New Shows</b></span><br /><i>Bull</i>, <i>Doubt</i>, <i>The Great Indoors</i>, <i>Kevin Can Wait</i>, <i>MacGyver</i>, <i>Man With A Plan</i>, <i>Pure Genius</i>, <i>Training Day</i><br /><br /><b>Fall Schedule By Day </b>(New Series in Caps)<br /><br /><b>Monday</b><br /><b>8-8:30 p.m. </b><i>The Big Bang Theory </i>(until mid-October) <i>KEVIN CAN WAIT</i><br /><i><b>8:30-9 p.m. </b>KEVIN CAN WAIT</i> (until mid-October) <i>MAN WITH A PLAN</i><br /><b>9-9:30 p.m. </b><i>2 Broke Girls</i> (new day and time)<br /><b>9:30-10 p.m.</b> <i>The Odd Couple </i>(new day and time)<br /><b>10-11 p.m.</b> <i>Scorpion</i> (new time)<br /><br /><b>Tuesday</b><br /><b>8</b><b>-9 p.m.</b>&nbsp;<i>NCIS</i><br /><b>9-10 p.m. </b><i>BULL</i><br /><b>10-11 p.m.</b> <i>NCIS: New Orleans</i><br /><br /><b>Wednesday</b><br /><b>8-9 p.m.</b> <i>Survivor</i><br /><b>9-10 p.m.<i> </i></b><i>Criminal Minds</i><br /><b>10-11 p.m.</b> <i>Code Black</i><br /><br /><b>Thursday</b> (Starting October 27)<br /><b>8-8:30 p.m. </b><i>The Big Bang Theory</i><br /><i><b>8:30-9 p.m. </b>THE GREAT INDOORS</i><br /><b>9-9:30 p.m. </b><i>Mom</i><br /><b>9:30-10 p.m.</b> <i>Life In Pieces</i><br /><b>10-11 p.m.</b> <i>PURE GENIUS</i><br /><br /><b>Friday</b><br /><b>8-</b><b>9 p.m.</b><i> MACGYVER</i><br /><b>9-10 p.m. </b><i>Hawaii Five 0</i><br /><b>10-11 p.m.</b> <i>Blue Bloods</i><br /><br /><b>Sunday </b><br /><b>7-</b><b>8 p.m.</b> <i>60 Minutes</i><br /><b>8-</b><b>9 p.m.</b> <i>NCIS: Los Angeles</i> (new day and time)<br /><b>9-</b><b>10 p.m. </b><i>Madam Secretary</i> (new time)<br /><b>10-11 p.m.</b> <i>Elementary</i><br /><br /><b>Summaries</b><br /><i>Kevin Can Wait</i> stars Kevin James as a newly retired NYPD Sergeant (named Kevin)who has big plans for his retirement including chilling with his family and having epic adventures with his friends and fellow retirees (like combining go karts and paintball). The problem is that Kevin’s wife Donna (Erinn Hayes) has withheld certain key information from him, meaning that the challenges he’s going to have to face at home are going to be greater than those he faced on the job (like keeping himself from killing his eldest daughter’s fiance).<br /><br /><i>Man With A Plan</i> marks Matt LeBlanc’s return to American broadcast network TV. He plays Adam, a contractor who decides to become a stay at home dad while his wife Andi (Jessica Chaffin) goes back to work. He doesn’t know what he’s in for. He – and his kids – expects that he can get away with being “daddy fun times” but he soon discovers that in their own ways his kids are maniacs. He needs to learn the tricks of getting control of his brood from other parents who’ve been there.<br /><br /><i>Bull</i> is Dr. Jason Bull (Michael Weatherly) is one of the top jury consultants in the country. He and his team use psychological analysis, intuition and high tech data to learn what makes lawyers, witnesses, and especially jurors tick. Weatherly’s character is based on Dr. Phil McGraw who, before he became a TV psychologist, was the founder of one of the top trial consulting firms ever. McGraw is one of the show’s executive producers, along with Steven Spielberg.<br /><br />In <i>The Great Indoors</i>, Kevin McHale plays Jack a renowned outdoor adventure writer who suddenly finds himself supervising a collection of millennial online journalists when Roland (Stephen Fry), the founder of the magazine he works for, decides to take the magazine “all-digital.”&nbsp; Complicating matters even more is the fact that he report has to report to Roland’s daughter Brooke (Susannah Fielding). If Jack can manage to decipher his co-workers he might be able to get them to realize that the outside world something more that an image on the screen.<br /><br /><i>Pure Genius</i> is a medical drama with a focus on the marriage of high technology and medicine. Young Silicon Valley tech billionaire James Bell (Augustus Pew) has built Bunker Hill Hospital to revolutionize health care and take on the rarest and most challenging medical mysteries, all free of charge. Bell persuade Dr. Walter Wallace (Dermot Mulroney), a maverick neurosurgeon who believes medicine is a human rather than a technological endeavour, to be the hospital’s chief of staff. Bell has assembled a group of trailblazing young doctors to pursue his goals.<br /><br /><i>MacGyver </i>is a re-imagining of the 1980’s series starring Lucas Till as Angus “Mac” MacGyver who uses his vast scientific knowledge and talent for improvisational problem solving to save lives while on missions for a clandestine organization that he created within the US government. Among those working with him is Lincoln (George Eads) a maverick former CIA agent.<br /><br />Debuting at mid-season, <i>Training Day</i> is a sequel to the movie of the same name. Bill Paxton plays morally ambiguous Detective Frank Rourke who heads up the LAPD’s Special Investigation Section. Frank has built a team that is devoted to him, but his tendency to operate in the grey areas has led Deputy Chief Joy Lockhart (Marianne Jean-Baptiste) to assign untarnished rookie Kyle Craig (Justin Cornwell) as Frank’s new trainee so that he can report on Frank and the SIS’s methods. However as Frank introduces Justin to the ways of the streets they form an uneasy alliance that could change both of them.<br /><br /><i>Doubt</i> is another series debuting at mid-season. Sadie Ellis (Katherine Heigl) is a brilliant attorney with a boutique law firm who falls in love with her client Bill Brennan (Steven Pasquale), an altruistic pediatric surgeon accused of the murder of his girlfriend 24 years before. Sadie conceals her feelings towards Bill from everyone including her best friend and colleague Albert Cobb (Dule Hill) who thingks he knows everything about her. Among the other lawyers at the firm are its revered founder Isaiah Roth (Elliott Gould) and Cameron Wirth, a transgender Ivy League graduate who fights passionately for her clients (Lavern Cox, who plays Cameron, is the frst transgender performer to play a transgender character as a series regular in a broadcast network series).<br /><br /><b>Comments</b><br />I am not very enthusiastic about most of the new CBS lineup. And it’s not <i>just</i> because my favourite show, <i>The Amazing Race</i>, is being held for mid-season (although that’s part of it). The new comedy series really don’t inspire much confidence from me. Certainly <i>Kevin Can Wait</i> and Man <i>With A Plan</i> seem like rehashes of concepts we have seen <i>so</i> many times before just with “big names.” The don’t inspire me and I can’t help but feeling that by the end of the 2016-17 season (if not before) CBS will regret sending <i>Supergirl</i> off to The CW (and keeping <i>Limitless</i> in limbo). <i>The Great Indoors</i> might be okay; on the other hand it might turn into just another workplace comedy, a type that CBS frankly doesn’t do well. I’m betting (metaphorically speaking) on the latter.<br /><br /><i>MacGyver</i> follows a trend that I mentioned in the FOX post, reviving a show that had a perfectly good send-off for no other reason than name recognition. I haven’t seen the trailer for the series (CBS has region-blocked their trailers this year, and while I was able to track down trailers for some of he network’s shows, I didn’try to get them all) so I can’t comment on what they’re putting on the screen, but somehow it just doesn’t feel like a good idea.<br /><br /><i>Bull</i> has a potentially interesting concept, a popular lead actor in Michael Weatherly and gives it an excellent time slot between two big CBS powerhouses (with ties to Weatherly) in <i>NCIS</i> and <i>NCIS: New Orleans</i> I can see this show doing well in the ratings while being totally ignored by the critics because it isn’t exciting or controversial. As for <i>Pure Genius</i>, the concept sounds a bit out there; a gimmicky medical show that isn’t the background for romantic entanglements like <i>Grey’s Anatomy</i>, never know what happens next cases like <i>Code Black</i>, and whatever it was they’re doing on <i>Chicago Medical</i> (a show I confess I don’t watch). Of course, since it was one of the trailers that I wasn’t able to see, it could be the greatest medical show ever, but I’m getting more of a feel of <i>Chicago Hope</i> than <i>ER</i>. Mid-season series <i>Doubt </i>leaves me cold. There are elements like the presence of Lavern Cox, and the description of her character’s passion that could be interesting, but given that the description gives so much attention to the relationship between the characters played by Katherine Heigl and Stephen Pasquale sends up red flags for me. I’m pretty sure it’s not going to be the next <i>Good Wife</i> and I’m worried that the main plot line could be the least interesting thing in this show.<br /><br />The show that sounds like it could be the next big thing for CBS could be the Training Day. If the network makes this show as harsh and gritty as the movie that it was based on I think there are intriguing directions that it could go in. It could very well be something of a critical darling if it’s done right, and if it can capture an audience. The midseason start doesn’t necessarily bode well for the latter.<br /><br />Looking at the completed CBS lineup I can’t help feeling disappointed. CBS has tended to produce a workman-like if not necessarily spectacularly good or noteworthy list of shows that mesh together well and leave the network with hard choices when the end of the season comes around. This lineup doesn’t feel like that; it feels like there are more big problems lying in wait than lasting successes.Brent McKeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14883838112004433045noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10697975.post-27187907747255577232016-05-18T13:43:00.002-06:002016-05-18T13:44:47.393-06:00Well That Was EmbarassingSo last night I posted my evaluation of the new FOX network shows to go along with my NBC evaluation. <b>I THOUGHT!</b> What actually happened was that my NBC evaluation vanished. <br />I <i>think</i> I know what happened. When I started writing the FOX material I decided to use the NBC post as a template. Using Open Writer I opened the posted NBC material, changed the title, removed all of the text that I didn’t want and then wrote in the new material. Simple. I’ve done it before although maybe not with Live Writer, the Microsoft product that Open Writer is a continuation of. <br /><br />What I think happened is that when I posted the draft FOX article to Blogger to do a final edit, either OpenWriter or Blogger thought I was posting a revision of the NBC post rather than a new post. And since I was kind of tired last night I didn’t pick up on the warning signs that I wasn’t posting something new, like the little orange box saying "Update" instead of "Publish".<br /><br />I’ll rewrite the NBC article later in the week and make sure it goes up as a new post. Now you’ll excuse me, I have to go spread some sheep manure.Brent McKeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14883838112004433045noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10697975.post-26122607141035374352016-05-16T05:41:00.000-06:002016-05-18T05:35:03.055-06:00FOX Upfronts 2016-17<a href="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-2z4t6NxMtwA/VzxQhihlv-I/AAAAAAAAF1A/l8UXsizsseM/s1600-h/FOX%252520logo%25255B3%25255D.jpg"><img align="right" alt="FOX logo" border="0" height="205" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-iCv1IuqP6yc/VzxQiDK9NHI/AAAAAAAAF1E/eJeBkylhi7o/FOX%252520logo_thumb%25255B1%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" style="background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; border-right: 0px; border-top: 0px; display: inline; float: right; margin: 0px 0px 0px 12px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" title="FOX logo" width="238" /></a>(<b>Writer’s Note:</b> I’m falling behind on doing these upfront reports. A big part of it is that I seem to have limited time to do the actual writing during the daytime – it’s may and among other things I garden – which means that I write when I’m able to find time. To catch up I’m probably going to hold off on the ABC shows until CBS and The CW do their announcements. Which in some ways is a bit of a pity because ABC actually has some shows I’m quite interested in this year.) <br /><br />Fox is traditionally the second network to present its line-up for the new season. They also have a different programming philosophy. Unlike NBC they have carefully laid out plans of when midseason shows will appear and plan to use hiatuses to air all of the shows that they pick up for the year. Thus, FOX will have the same number of new series debuting in the Fall as NBC (but because they don’t offer nighttime football they have one extra night to play with) but probably more new series overall. <br /><br />FOX really seems to be pushing two things with their new shows: remakes of older shows (<i>24 Legacy</i>, <i>Prison Break</i>) and movies (<i>Lethal Weapon</i>, <i>The Exorcist</i>), and big name stars (Oscar winners Geena Davis, Richard Dreyfuss and Helen Hunt, and Oscar nominee Queen Latifah<br /><br /><b><span style="color: red;">Cancelled</span></b><br /><i>American Idol</i>, <i>Bordertown</i>, <i>Cooper Barrett’s Guide To Surviving Life</i>, <i>Grandfathered</i>, <i>The Grinder</i>, <i>Minority Report</i>, <i>Second Chance</i><br /><br /><b><span style="color: red;">Renewed</span></b><br /><i>Bob’s Burgers</i>, <i>Bones</i>, <i>Brooklyn Nine-Nine</i>, <i>Empire</i>, <i>Family Guy</i>, <i>Gotham</i>, <i>Hell’s Kitchen</i>, The <i>Last Man On Earth</i>, <i>Lucifer</i>, <i>New Girl</i>, <i>Rosewood</i>, <i>Scream Queens</i>, <i>Sleepy Hollow</i>, <i>The Simpsons</i><b><span style="color: red;">&nbsp;</span></b><br /><br /><b><span style="color: red;">New Shows</span></b><br /><i>24: Legacy</i>, <i>A.P.B.</i>, <i>The Exorcist</i>, <i>Lethal Weapon</i>, <i>Making History</i>, <i>The Mick</i>, <i>Pitch</i>, <i>Shots Fired</i>, <i>Son of Zorn</i>, <i>Star, Prison Break</i><br /><br /><b>Fall Schedule By Day </b>(New Series in Caps)<br /><br /><b><span style="color: red;">Monday</span></b><br /><b>8-9 p.m. </b><i>Gotham / 24 LEGACY / Gotham</i><br /><b>9-10 p.m.</b> <i>Lucifer / A.P.B. / Lucifer</i><br /><br /><b><span style="color: red;">Tuesday</span></b><br /><b>8-8:30 p.m. </b><i>Brooklyn Nine-Nine / New Girl/ Brooklyn Nine-Nine</i><br /><b>8:30-9 p.m.</b> <i>New Girl / THE MICK</i><br /><b>9-10 p.m. </b><i>Scream Queens / KICKING AND SCREAMING / PITCH</i><br /><br /><b><span style="color: red;">Wednesday</span></b><br /><b>8-9 p.m.</b> <i>LETHAL WEAPON / SHOTS FIRED</i><br /><b>9-10 p.m.<i> </i></b><i>Empire / STAR / Empire</i><br /><b><span style="color: red;"></span></b><br /><b><span style="color: red;">Thursday</span></b><br /><b>8-</b><b>9 p.m.</b> <i>Rosewood </i>(new day and time) <br /><b>9-10 p.m.</b> <i>Bones </i>(new time) / <i>PRISON BREAK</i><br /><br /><b><span style="color: red;">Friday</span></b><br /><b>8-</b><b>9 p.m.</b><i> Hell’s Kitchen / Master Chef Junior</i><br /><b>9-10 p.m. </b><i>THE EXORCIST / Sleepy Hollow</i><br /><br /><b><span style="color: red;">Sunday</span>&nbsp;</b><br /><b>7-7:30 p.m. </b><i>NFL On Fox</i><br /><b>7:30-8 p.m.</b> <i>The</i> <i>OT / Bob’s Burgers</i><br /><b>8-8:30 p.m. </b><i>The Simpsons</i><br /><b>8:30-9 p.m.</b> <i>SON OF ZORN / MAKING HISTORY</i><br /><b>9-9:30 p.m. </b>Family Guy<br /><b>9:30-10 p.m. </b><i>Last Man on Earth</i><br /><br /><b>Summaries</b><br /><i>24: Legacy</i> is <i>24</i> without Jack Bauer (Kiefer Sutherland has a show on ABC but is serving as an Executive Producer on this version of the show). Eric Carter (Corey Hawkins) is an ex-Army Ranger who has returned to America from a mission for a revived CTU. Trouble follows him and he has to reach out to former CTU head Rebecca Ingram (Miranda Otto) to help him prevent what might be the biggest terrorist attack on US soil.<br /><br /><i>A.P.B.</i>: When a the mentor and best friend of tech billionaire Gideon Reeves (Justin Kirk) is murdered and the precinct where the killing happened is too hit by budget cuts to investigate the crime, he effectively buys the precinct. Equipping the precinct with the latest in high-tech gadgetry, including a phone app called A.P.B., Reeves sets out to show what can be done with a privatized police force. <br /><br />In <i>The Exorcist</i> Geena Davis plays Angela Rance, a woman who is convinced that her home is housing a demon since her eldest daughter returned home from college. Alonso Herrera plays Father Tomas, her parish priest to whom she turns for help, and Ben Daniels is Father Marcus, the priest to whom he turns for help.<br /><br /><i>Lethal Weapon</i> is based on the movies of the same name, starring Damon Wayans as Roger Murtagh and Clayne Crawford as Martin Riggs. I think that’s all that really needs to be said.<br /><br />The premise of the new comedy <i>Making History</i> is that a nerdy college science professor (Adam Pally) develops a time machine (in a large gym bag) that allows them to travel back in time to 1775. Unfortuntely his presence there (where he’s dating Paul Revere’s daughter) seems to be interfering with the events leading to the American Revolution. In order to set things right, he gets one of the university’s history professors (Yassir Lester) to help set things right. Hilarity – and ham – ensues, (the latter part of that is a sample of what the writers find funny in this).<br /><br />In <i>The Mick</i>, Kaitlin Olson plays Mackenzie, known as “Mickey.” She’s a two bit hustler who actively avoids responsibility. She suddenly finds herself forced to take responsibility when her estranged sister and billionaire brother-in-law flee the country to avoid going to prison for tax evasion. They leave Mickey with their three kids. Motherhood was never in her plans but she has to transform these spoiled rich kids into&nbsp; well-adjusted, hard working, decent members of society. Which is hard since she herself has never been any of these things.<br /><br />In <i>Pitch</i> Ginny Baker (Kylie Bunbury) is suddenly propelled into the spotlight when the San Diego Padres sign her as the first woman to play major league baseball. to make a success of her career she not only has to perform but she has to win over her new team mates, many of whom don’t want to see a woman in professional baseball. She has her supporters, including catcher Mike Lawson (Mark-Paul Gosselaar, and her agent Amelia Slater (Ali Larter).<br /><br /><i>Shots Fired</i> takes a look at one of the major issues of our times. When a white college student is shot to death by an apparently racist black police officer, a pair of Justice Department investigators are sent to a small North Carolina town. What Ashe Akino (Sanaa Lathan) and Preston Terry (Stephan James), both of whom are African-American, discover is the neglected murder of a Black teen, and tensions that are on the verge of igniting. They begin to suspect a cover-up that may go as high as the state’s governor played by Helen Hunt.<br /><br /><i>Son of Zorn</i> may be the ultimate fish-out-of-water comedy. Zorn (voiced by Jason Sudekis) comes from an island in the South Pacific where everyone is an animated character. He comes to Orange County, California to reconnect with his ex-wife Edie and estranged teenage son Alangulon, who are flesh and blood (Cheryl Hines and Johnny Pemberton respectively). Complicating matters is that Zorn is not only an animated character, he’s also a barbarian warrior. Nevertheless, to reconnect with his son he’s willing to settle down rent an apartment and get a job in the “exciting field of industrial soap sales.”<br /><br /><i>Star</i> is a new series from the creator of <i>Empire</i>, Lee Daniels. Like Empire it is set in the music industry but is about young artists looking for their big break. Star (Jude Demorest), her sister Simone (Brittany O’Grady), and “Instagram bestie” Alexandra (Ryan Destiny) journey to Atlanta to make it in the music industry as a girl group. They are taken under the wing of beauty salon owner Carlotta (Queen Latifah), who had her own dreams of stardom shattered. She doesn’t approve of the girls’ desire to make it in the music industry, but she’ll stand by them.<br /><br /><i>Prison Break</i> is back again as a limited series with original stars Wentworth Miller and Domenic Purcell (fresh off their time on <i>DC’s Legends of Tomorrow</i> and <i>The Flash</i>). When Sara Tancredi (Sarah Wayne Callis) discovers that Michael Scofield might still be alive she enlists the help of his brother Lincoln Burrows and several of the Fox River Prison escapees to rescue him from a prison break in another country.<br /><br /><b>Comments</b><br />In my opinion, based on watching the trailers tht FOX has put online, there seem to be a few good things in the network’s new season line-up along with some shows that I don’t really understand the need for. And then there are some shows that I can’t understand why anyone would want to watch. Those will probably be big hits.<br /><br />Does anyone really need to see new versions of <i>Lethal Weapon</i> or <i>The Exorcist</i>? At the end of the 2015-16 season we saw CBS try to do a TV version of <i>Rush Hour</i>. It didn’t work and as far as I can see it didn’t work because there was no demand for seeing the concept revived with a TV budget and without the original stars. I really don’t think the <i>Lethal Weapon</i> remake will be successful and I have my doubts about <i>The Exorcist</i> as well. Of the two TV series revivals, I think <i>24: Legacy</i> at least has some potential without Kiefer Sutherland. On the other hand I simply don’t see the need for the <i>Prison Break</i> sequel. We had closure with the original series; why revisit it.<br /><br />I’m dubious about two of FOX’s new comedies, <i>Son Of&nbsp; Zorn</i> and <i>Making History</i>. The former is a colossal gimmick that I found vaguely funny in the trailer while the latter reminds me of the sort of show that the old UPN network would put on in their <i>Homeboys From Outer Space</i> period. Of the two I think <i>Son of Zorn</i> might find a way to succeed in the ratings (so with my track record that mean’s they’ll both be huge hits). I’m also not sure about <i>A.P.B.</i> The concept is interesting but it might be a touch on the futuristic side and more than a little bit hard to believe. That said I thought the little bit I saw was fun. My problem is that the show might garner the sort of reaction that <i>Almost Human</i> did a few years ago. Or <i>Minority Report</i> did this past season.<br /><br />The shows that I think have promise (besides <i>24: Legacy</i>) are <i>Pitch</i>, <i>Shots Fired</i>, <i>Star</i>, and surprisingly <i>The Mick</i>. <i>Pitch</i> want’s to be Jackie Robinson’s story with a woman instead of a minority male, but if it’s done right could be involving even if the premise is hard to swallow. <i>Star</i> is a perfect fit to take over <i>Empire</i>’s time slot and I think that the fact that it is a personal drama rather than the sometimes over the top soap opera tendencies of <i>Empire</i> (come on admit that Empire reminds you just a little of <i>Dallas</i>) is a mark in it’s favour as far as I’m concerned. The strength of <i>Shots Fired</i> should be apparent to anyone watching the trailer. FOX is taking on a serious issue and is doing a serious job with it. Finally, the trailer for <i>The Mick</i> was a genuine surprise for me. I liked the lead character and I thought they got the kids right (and the Hispanic maid was a hoot). Of course, when I think about it I am struck by a superficial resemblance to the concept for <i>The Nanny</i> (minus the romantic entanglement in that show) but then I loved <i>The Nanny.</i>Brent McKeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14883838112004433045noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10697975.post-60811107642009436582016-02-07T04:17:00.002-06:002016-02-07T04:19:13.405-06:00Check Out My New BlogCheck out my new Blog <a href="http://firstagainstwall.blogspot.ca/"><i>First Against The Wall Come The Revolution</i></a>. It's a work in progress, which you can tell because there are no ads on it yet. but I'm having a bit of fun with some of the dumb things that people - and Donald Trump - say and do. Brent McKeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14883838112004433045noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10697975.post-68784244244654046902015-12-30T03:50:00.000-06:002015-12-30T03:51:38.269-06:00Streaming Boxes–A Biased Overview<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-mOde03GBhwY/VoOookPuO1I/AAAAAAAAFmo/5v1gntoO0N8/s1600/Chromecast-vs-Apple-TV-vs-Roku.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-mOde03GBhwY/VoOookPuO1I/AAAAAAAAFmo/5v1gntoO0N8/s320/Chromecast-vs-Apple-TV-vs-Roku.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>I should start by stating a few things that should really disqualify me from writing about this subject, but really when has this ever stopped anyone. I have a third generation Apple TV. I don’t have any of the other devices that I’m going to mention and I have very limited exposure to the fourth generation Apple TV (I asked a guy at an authorized Apple store a couple of questions about it but didn’t get to play with it extensively) and the Roku devices. Another big thing is that I’m a Canadian. If you don’t think that has a lot of implications, then you are in for a learning experience. It restricts the hardware that’s available, the services that you can get and even the programming that is available on many of those services. I intend to discuss services and the differences between Canada and the US, and vent my spleen a bit about the way Canadian TV is set up, in another article.<br /><br /><br />So let’s start with hardware. What I’m discussing here are set top boxes (though with flat screen TV’s no one can actually put any of these on the top of the TV set) that stream video from Internet providers generally using Wi-Fi. In Canada you basically have three companies to choose from: AppleTV, Roku, and Google. Amazon doesn’t sell its Fire TV (or the Fire tablet for that matter) in Canada and doesn’t offer the Amazon Video service in Canada. Western Digital also sells the WD TV Live product here but it is primarily a device for streaming video from your computer to your TV, and has limited connectivity to Internet sites. It doesn’t do what the devices I’m focussing on do.<br /><br /><br />Here’s what’s on offer in Canada (prices are in Canadian Dollars, from Best Buy Canada):<br /><b>Apple</b><br /><ul><li>Apple TV 3rd Generation – $89.99 </li><li>Apple TV 4th Generation 32 GB – $199.99 </li><li>Apple TV 4th Generation 64 GB – $269.99</li></ul><br /><b>Roku</b><br /><ul><li>Roku HDMI Streaming Stick – $59.99 </li><li>Roku 1 Streaming Media Player – $59.99 </li><li>Roku 2 Streaming Media Player – $79.99 </li><li>Roku 3 Streaming Media Player – $109.99</li></ul><br /><b>Google</b><br /><ul><li>Chromecast 1st Generation – $39.00 (online only) </li><li>Chromecast 2nd Generation – $45.00</li></ul><br />Let’s start up with the Chromecasts and the Roku Stick (Amazon has it’s own contender in this field the Fire Stick). Their big advantage is portability. You could easily keep one in your luggage when you travel without having to loose any item, although with the Roku Stick you need to take its remote too. The Roku and the first generation Chromecast look like USB keys, albeit a bit larger. They plug into an open HDMI port on your TV so if your TV doesn’t have HDMI you’re out of luck (and should probably get a new TV) with one of these devices. The second Generation Chromecast looks a bit like a smaller than regulation hockey puck on a leash, which is in fact a short cable plugging into the HDMI port. HDMI ports aren’t powered so they need to get power. All three can draw power from the TV’s USB port (if it has one) using a detachable USB cable which can also plug into an adapter to plug into a wall or power strip. <br /><br />That is where the similarity ends. The Roku Stick comes with a remote and has the capacity to store apps for services like Netflix onboard. In short it sort of acts the other Roku Media players in a much smaller package. Although it is also possible to use your phone as remote, it’s more cumbersome than using the Stick’s own remote. The process with the Chromecast is far different. Your phone is not only your only remote, but it is an essential part of the process. If a service has a phone app then you can use that to select programming and then, if the app is compatible you can tap an icon to send that information to the Chromecast via Wi-Fi. You can also “cast” material that doesn’t directly support Chromecast onto the device using your phone, and can even mirror what you are doing on your phone – browsing a webpage, listening to music, playing a game etc. – although there can be lag problems with game play. <br /><br />The Chromecast seems like a great device from what I’ve been able to find out, but if what you want to do is watch TV with a familiar interface, either because you’ve got a Roku (or even an Apple TV) at home, or you just want something that is relatively simple to use, you are probably best to go with the Roku Stick.<br /><br />Turning now to the set top boxes, we should start with the Rokus. Roku has done a very interesting and important thing with this device. Each version fills a particular niche. The Roku 1 works for older TVs; it has composite as well as HDMI connections to the TV, supports analog audio, and works with TVs with 480p, 480i, 720p and 1080p resolution. So if your TV doesn`t have HDMI (like my old CRT in the dining room) you can use the wired connections on this without problems. The current Roku 2 does 720p and 1080p, does not have analog audio of any sort, and only offers an IR remote. The Roku 3 does most of the same things as the Roku 2 but has an analog audio output on the remote through headphones that plug into the remote and allows users to use “WiFi Direct” (basically any device using WiFi including your phone, tablet or – presumably – your laptop) to control the box. The Roku 4, introduced in October 2015 but not offered at Best Buy Canada, supports 4K TVs, offers an optical audio output on the box, and has voice search.<br /><br />The competition in this field is the Apple TV. The 3rd Generation of the Apple TV (which I own) has an HDMI and Optical Audio output. It supports TVs with 720p and 1080p resolution although the product details section at Best Buy claims it can do 480p. There’s no option to control the box with a wireless device like a phone. The 4th Generation Apple TV drops the Optical Audio output and supports 720p and 1080p resolution, but to the surprise of many does not support 4K. The 4th Generation remote has the standard buttons but also has a touch screen and some voice commands using Siri. You can, for example, tell Siri what sort of movies you want to see, and it will report back movies that fit your search…on some services that support Siri. You can then refine the search by naming a specific star or director etc. There are some other tricks like skipping forward or back by telling Siri how far ahead or back you want to go. Another trick is that by saying “What did he/she say?” Siri will skip back 30 seconds and put up close captioning of the dialog in that particular scene. This is some of the stuff that you can do with the 4th Generation Apple TV that you can’t do with the 3rd Generation device or on the Roku boxes.<br /><br />Of course what makes these boxes isn’t the hardware, it’s the content. In a very real way “content is king” with all of these devices and that’s where the difference between the United States and Canada comes into play. There are something like 63 to 66 services available to American users of the 3rd Generation Apple TV and only about 33 available to Canadians, and two of those are only available to Canadians. It is possible to get around these restrictions using a VPN (Virtual Private Network), but I’ve been given to understand that at least some of those services are cracking down on customers who use a VPN for that purpose. <br /><br />Of course, even if you do use a VPN in Canada to get channels available in the United States, you’d probably still see all of the available streaming services. Slightly under a third of the services in the U.S. require you to subscribe to cable channel and in some cases not all cable companies are support Apple TV for specific services. While the number of streaming services available on the Roku is greater (one commenter to an article I used to research this piece commented “63 apps? That's it? Rook (sic) has hundreds and Apple's answer is 63 apps?”) a number of those apps will also have restrictions requiring you to have the cable TV version of the service. A number of the other services require some form of monthly subscription. In some cases – notably HBO Now – this is a “good thing” as it allows you to access premium content without having to have HBO on cable. Of course the price of HBO (in Canada at least) is about $18.00 (Canadian) but it’s the principle of the thing I suppose.<br /><br />The complaint of the commenter I mentioned, that the 3rd Generation Apple TV had only 63 apps while his Roku box had hundreds is is negated by the 4th Generation Apple TV. There are now hundreds if not thousands of apps available for the new Apple TV. And while most of those are games (and most of those games are of the sort that you play on an iPhone or iPad rather than on a full console) it does represent a major sea change for the Apple TV. On the 3rd Generation Apple TV the only way you could watch material from Leo Laporte’s TWiT network was on the Apple TV’s podcast app. On the new Apple TV there are at least four TWiT apps and one of them is even free (the other three are $0.99). And there are at least four apps from Canadian media companies in addition to Shomi and Crave: CBC News, The National Film Board, the Weather Network, and Sportsnet.<br /><br />Of course the biggest argument for buying any version of the Apple TV is that it is the only streaming box that includes iTunes, and specifically movie and TV series purchase or rental from Apples iTunes store. There’s also the Apple Music presumably including Beats 1 radio, although this hasn’t been offered to me on my 3rd Generation Apple TV (because I’m Canadian?) There is something to be said for owning content such as a copy of a movie even in these days of streaming media and services. Movies appear on Netflix but they also disappear, and there are certainly things that rarely appear on the streaming services that I can watch (I’m thinking older movies, like from the 1960s and before, and stuff shot in black &amp; white; you won’t find the classic John Wayne movie <i>Red River</i> on Netflix) that are available for sale or rent from Apple.<br /><br />When most reviewers are asked which streaming device to buy, they usually come down strong on the side of the Roku box in some version. I don’t necessarily think that they’re wrong, in spite of the fact that I own a 3rd Generation Apple TV. I won my Apple TV in a machine at the local mall, and even when I factor in all of the money that I had spent over the previous months to win it, it was still less than the current price of the box, let alone the price at the time ($109). At the time that I won my Apple TV I was actively looking at set top boxes as my next purchase after the soundbar that I was close to getting. I was leaning towards the Roku 3 based on everything that I had heard about the two devices. If I were paying full price and the choice was between the Roku 3 and the 3rd Generation Apple TV, I think that even though the Apple TV is about $40 cheaper I might go with the Roku 3 because of the ability to customize the experience. However, even though the 4th Generation Apple TV is about $90 more than the Roku 3 I’m not totally sure that I wouldn’t have waited a bit and spend the extra money.Brent McKeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14883838112004433045noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10697975.post-83035535857642104112015-11-26T02:29:00.000-06:002015-11-26T02:32:22.236-06:00First Cancellation–Wicked City<a href="http://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-ttgB98UeBsY/VlbBuh_W3PI/AAAAAAAAFco/bQCH60oktWU/s1600-h/Wicked_City_ABC%25255B2%25255D.jpg"><img align="right" alt="Wicked_City_ABC" border="0" src="http://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-7RFLteQbcgM/VlbBvEr7igI/AAAAAAAAFcs/TlaD233lB5Q/Wicked_City_ABC_thumb.jpg?imgmax=800" height="120" style="background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; border-right: 0px; border-top: 0px; display: inline; float: right; margin: 0px 0px 12px 10px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" title="Wicked_City_ABC" width="244" /></a>ABC has announced that they will be pulling their new series <i>Wicked City</i> after three episodes. For now it will be replaced by reruns of reality series <i>Shark Tank</i> which had held down the time slot while the network waited for the show to debut. Yawn<br /><br />This makes the series, about a kinky serial killer and his lover set in Los Angeles in the 1980s, the first new series of the 2015-16 to actually be cancelled. The cancellation date of November 13 is the latest date for a cancellation in recent years.<br /><br />But is it really?<br /><br />There’s no argument that <i>Wicked City</i> is the first series to leave the air this season and the show that has left the air quickest so far this year (3 episodes), but a number of series have had their series orders reduced. These include FOX’s <i>Minority Report</i>, ABC’s <i>Blood &amp; Oil</i>, and NBC’s <i>The Player</i> and <i>Truth Be Told</i>. With the exception of <i>The Player</i> these shows have had their orders reduced from 13 to 10 episodes (<i>The Player</i>’s order was cut to 9 episodes). Aren’t these effectively cancellations, which would mean that these shows were cancelled before <i>Wicked City</i>?<br /><br />Well I think that <i>maybe</i> an argument could be made along those lines. I suspect that the networks have definite reasons for reducing orders and letting the shows run out their abbreviated orders rather than being pulled outright in the way that <i>Wicked City</i> was.<br /><br />TV.Com did an article called <i>6 <a href="http://www.tv.com/news/network-cancellations-order-trims-144596863842/">Reasons Why Networks Are Trimming Orders Instead of Canceling Shows</a></i>. The writer lists reasons why he thinks that the networks have opted to trim orders. I think that some (but not all) of what he says has some validity. The six reasons, with on interpretation of what I believe he’s saying are:<br /><ol><li><b>Face Saving for Networks:</b> Image is everything for the networks and “trimming the order” for a show “sounds” better than saying outright that the show is cancelled. </li><li><b>Shows Finish On Their Own Terms:</b> Trimming the order gives the creative team the ability to craft a series finale rather than having the show just end, or worse end with a cliff-hanger. </li><li><b>The Bridges Remain Unburned:</b> According to the writer, there’s a power shift going on between networks and creators so that “playing nice” – which presumably means not cancelling a show outright – makes more sense for the networks because “you never know who’s going to be worthy of a second chance. </li><li><b>Life (and Money) After Death in Streaming:</b> Basically the idea that even a failed show like <i>Minority Report</i> can have life after leaving the broadcast network – and can generate revenue for the network – on a streaming service like Netflix or Crackle, or some other site that “come up with funny names and pay exorbitant amounts of money for streaming rights to shows.” But they won’t do that if the show only had a couple of episodes before being canned. </li><li><b>The Bench is Shallow:</b> There aren’t the reserves of new shows that can be brought in to fill in the blank spot where a cancelled show used to be – which presumably is why <i>Wicked City</i> is being replaced by reruns of <i>Shark Tank</i> instead of episodes of something new – because those shows are earmarked for hiatus periods of running shows, or to replace short-run shows.The irony is that <i>Wicked City</i> was meant to be a mid-season show, which may indicate that the bench is not only shallow but weak.</li><li><b>Networks Have Accepted the Grim Realities of Their Futures:</b> For this I’m going to have to run nearly his entire reasoning, so please excuse the profanities – they’re his not mine, although my opinion of the logic in this one can be described with a word he uses in this explanation (you can guess which one): <i>Like a single man approaching his 40s and eating Hot Pockets for dinner for the third night in a row, sometimes it's easier for networks to accept that things are just how they are and it's pointless to try harder. This is the new paradigm, and networks understand they're dinosaurs and the chances of getting a huge hit that can float a network are slimmer and slimmer with each day that passes. Yeah, this is a pessimistic view of things, but it's also the truth. You can only throw so much shit at a wall to see if it sticks before you run out of shit and your arm gets tired. More important for networks right now is to try to devise alternate ways of competing with the expanding TV market rather than spending all the money it takes to find the next</i> Empire<i>.</i>&nbsp;</li></ol><br />So I think he may have some valid points with some of his reasons, specifically (and in order) numbers 5, 2, 3, and 4. The big reason is that “the bench is shallow” but more importantly is that it is rare for a new replacement series to earn ratings that are better than the ratings that the show it is replacing earned. As it is, shows starting in January or later often face an uphill struggle to gain acceptance. <i>Empire</i>, which debuted in January 2015, is a rare exception.<br /><br />I’d like to offer a couple of options of my own that may have some validity.<br /><ol><li><b>Trimming the Order is a Flexible Response:</b> Put simply, trimming the order for a show allows the network to reverse or at least modify their decision as to the fate of a show. If, for example, the people who watched <i>Thursday Night Football</i> decided that they’d rather watch <i>The Player</i> on NBC than CBS’s <i>Elementary</i> (or ABC’s <i>How To Get Away With Murder</i>) once football left CBS, a trimmed order would allow the network to react to the sudden upswing in viewers. Not that a sudden increase in audience numbers is a likely outcome. In fact it is increasingly rare in the current TV landscape.</li><li><b>Using What You Paid For:</b> As I understand it – and I readily admit that my understanding of the workings of this part of the TV industry is weak – the networks contract for a certain number of episodes. Those episodes are in various stages of the production process, from completed scripts to post production. The networks has paid, or made partial payment, for those episodes. Trimming the order would stop work on new scripts but would allow the completed scripts (that the network has paid for) to go through the production process.</li></ol><br /><br />Of course all of this begs the ultimate question: why was <i>Wicked City</i> cancelled when <i>Minority Report</i>, <i>The Player</i>, <i>Blood &amp; Oil</i>, and <i>Truth Be Told</i> had their orders cut? It seems to be a pretty simple answer really. The viewership for the shows that had their orders reduced were bad, no doubt about that, but the viewership for <i>Wicked City</i> was abysmal This chart shows the combined “live” and same day viewership 18-49 demographic ratings and share of <i>Wicked City</i> and the shows shows that had their orders cut. (There’s same day +7 data also available for some shows but not for <i>Wicked City</i> so I won’t include that). All information taken from Wikipedia which in turn uses data from <a href="http://tvbythenumbers.zap2it.com/">TV By The Numbers</a>. I will give information for the pilot and the most recent show to air, and for comparison sake I’ll include the information for NBC’s <i>Blindspot</i>, which appears to be the most successful of the new series (except <i>Supergirl</i>, for which I don’t have enough data).<br /><br /><div align="center"><table align="center" border="1" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" style="width: 575px;"> <tbody><tr> <td valign="top" width="143"></td> <td valign="top" width="143"></td> <td valign="top" width="143"><div align="center"><b>Viewers <br />(Same Day +1)</b></div></td> <td valign="top" width="143"><div align="center"><b>18-49 Rating/Share</b></div></td></tr><tr> <td valign="top" width="143"><div align="center"><i>Wicked City</i></div></td> <td valign="top" width="143"><div align="center">Pilot</div></td> <td valign="top" width="143"><div align="center">3,280,000</div></td> <td valign="top" width="143">0.9/3</td></tr><tr> <td valign="top" width="143"></td> <td valign="top" width="143">November 10</td> <td valign="top" width="143">1,690,000</td> <td valign="top" width="143">0.4/1</td></tr><tr> <td valign="top" width="143"><i>The Player</i></td> <td valign="top" width="143">Pilot</td> <td valign="top" width="143">4,680,000</td> <td valign="top" width="143">1.2/4</td></tr><tr> <td valign="top" width="143"></td> <td valign="top" width="143">November 19</td> <td valign="top" width="143">3,410000</td> <td valign="top" width="143">0.8/3</td></tr><tr> <td valign="top" width="143"><i>Blood &amp; Oil</i></td> <td valign="top" width="143">Pilot</td> <td valign="top" width="143">6,360,000</td> <td valign="top" width="143">1.4/4</td></tr><tr> <td valign="top" width="143"></td> <td valign="top" width="143">November 8</td> <td valign="top" width="143">3,400,000</td> <td valign="top" width="143">0.8/2</td></tr><tr> <td valign="top" width="143"><i>Minority Report</i></td> <td valign="top" width="143">Pilot</td> <td valign="top" width="143">3,100,000</td> <td valign="top" width="143">1.1/3</td></tr><tr> <td valign="top" width="143"></td> <td valign="top" width="143">November 23</td> <td valign="top" width="143">1,520,000</td> <td valign="top" width="143">0.5/2</td></tr><tr> <td valign="top" width="143"><i>Truth Be Told</i>&nbsp;</td> <td valign="top" width="143">Pilot</td> <td valign="top" width="143">2,580,000</td> <td valign="top" width="143">0.7/3</td></tr><tr> <td valign="top" width="143"></td> <td valign="top" width="143">November 20</td> <td valign="top" width="143">2,110,000</td> <td valign="top" width="143">0.6/2</td></tr><tr> <td valign="top" width="143"><i>Blindspot</i></td> <td valign="top" width="143">Pilot</td> <td valign="top" width="143">10,610,000</td> <td valign="top" width="143">3.1/10</td></tr><tr> <td valign="top" width="143"></td> <td valign="top" width="143">November 23</td> <td valign="top" width="143">7,030,000</td> <td valign="top" width="143">1.9/6</td></tr></tbody></table></div><br />Compared to the four shows that had their orders cut, viewership for the pilot of <i>Wicked City</i> was worse than <i>Minority Report</i> (which probably should have been cancelled but it ran on FOX) and <i>Truth Be Told</i> (which aired on Friday night, where viewership is lower than the rest of the week). <i>Wicked City</i>’s pilot actually had a lower viewership than the most final episode of <i>The Player</i>.&nbsp; Maybe the worst part of all for ABC was the 18-49 demographic numbers given that at the network’s upfronts in May “ABC president Paul Lee stated that the show was their highest testing pilot of 2015 among millennials.” This group would represent the 18-35 year-old portion of the demographic, and yet the 18-49 rating and share for <i>Wicked City</i> was worse than that of any of the new shows except the Friday series <i>Truth Be Told</i>. This is the big reason why Wicked City got cancelled instead of having its order cut.Brent McKeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14883838112004433045noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10697975.post-73873239418583862382015-11-14T03:37:00.000-06:002015-11-14T03:40:22.869-06:00Am I Getting Too Old For This?<a href="http://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-dBlsHvK7WM4/Vkb_7j-fFzI/AAAAAAAAFaY/dM4qePOe6fs/s1600-h/master-of-none%25255B2%25255D.jpg"><img align="left" alt="master-of-none" border="0" src="http://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-57oQGCEc5Q4/Vkb_8cCbh_I/AAAAAAAAFac/GZuyj5mg7fY/master-of-none_thumb.jpg?imgmax=800" height="153" style="background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; border-right: 0px; border-top: 0px; display: inline; float: left; margin: 0px 12px 12px 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" title="master-of-none" width="244" /></a>This isn’t a review of the show I’m going to be talking about because I broke one of my cardinal rules of reviewing anything. I suppose you could call it more of a musing about the universe and my place as an amateur TV critic, as revealed by my reaction to a new show.<br /><br />I signed up for Netflix a couple of months ago. There’s a whole story about being Canadian streaming video and how it’s a different experience from the one that Americans face, but that’s for another time. Generally the Netflix experience has been an enjoyable one even though I haven’t been binge watching every show available on on the service, the way we’re apparently supposed to. I usually end up watching one or two shows a night, depending on the night, but sticking with them until I’ve seen all of the available episodes.<br /><br />Saturday night, after watching <i>Ocean’s 13</i> (nowhere near as enjoyable as either version of <i>Ocean’s 11</i> or even <i>Ocean’s 12</i>) I decided that I felt like a comedy. I’ve gone through the first season of <i>Grace &amp; Frankie</i> which I loved so I decided that I’d try Aziz Ansari’s new series <i>Master Of None</i>. I had seen the rave reviews that the series had received from everybody from the <i>New York Times</i> to <i>Vogue Magazine</i> which basically called it hilarious and the greatest thing since sliced bread, or at least the greatest comedy of this year (okay, so admittedly that’s not a high bar to clear based on what the broadcast networks came up with this season. Or last season. I figured I’d give it a try and see what all the fuss was about.<br /><br />I watched about half the first episode.<br /><br />That’s why I’m not reviewing <i>Master of None</i>; my cardinal rule of reviewing anything is that you can’t give an informed opinion of anything if you only experience a portion of if. What I can tell you is why I stopped watching it. I didn’t find it funny. More importantly I didn’t find anything or anyone that I could latch onto that could hold my interest. Ansari and the three characters at the start of the episode (after his little tryst and subsequent trip to the pharmacy) were self-absorbed, self-involved, self-satisfied a--holes. There discussion of children and the impact that having children would have was enough to make me want to bludgeon all three of them so that they wouldn’t have children. An example of this was when Ansari was talking about how being a parent would keep him from having pasta. He wants pasta but having a kid means that he has to stay at home to look after the kid so he can’t have pasta. When it’s pointed out that people with kids actually have pasta, the response is that they’re just eating their kid’s Spaghetti-os. I managed to make it a few minutes longer to when Ansari and his buddy Brian were at the party for a one year-old (Brian hogs the bouncy house and gets mad because a kid in there prevents him from getting “his bounce on”) before I said to hell with this and looked for an episode of <i>What’s My Line</i> (with Fred Allen!) on YouTube.<br /><br />The thing I look for when I’m watching most TV shows is something to hold my interest. This is usually a character that I can feel some empathy for, or sympathy for, or a situation that catches my interest. That’s what got me hooked on <i>The Big Bang Theory</i> from the start; I felt an empathy for Leonard being in love with someone who – at least at the beginning – had no romantic feelings for him. Been there, done that, bought the t-shirt too many times. The initial mystery got me into <i>How To Get Away With Murder</i>, but I dropped the show recently – after the initial mystery was solved – because I didn’t like any of the characters. Actually I thought that all of the main characters should be arrested and have the keys to their cells thrown away. Having eliminated the thing that got me interested in the show it had to hold me with the characters and it didn’t have any characters that I felt any empathy or sympathy for. As far as Master of None goes, I felt nothing for Ansari or his friend who monopolized the bouncy house which was as far as I got into the regular characters.<br /><br />So here’s the thing. I know I have the right to say that <i>I</i> didn’t like what I saw of this show. I can express a personal opinion just as well as anyone.The fact that I can give reasons – or at least I can reasonably cogently explain – why I dislike the show is even better. The problem I have is with being the voice in the wilderness; the guy who says “I hate this,” when everyone else says that “this is genius.” It bothers me because I want to know why I am this out of step with things.<br /><br />(By the way I’m not kidding about “everyone” liking this show. It has an approval rating of 100% on <a href="http://www.rottentomatoes.com/tv/master-of-none/s01/reviews/">Rotten Tomatoes</a>, and a score of 91 on <a href="http://www.metacritic.com/tv/master-of-none/critic-reviews">Metacritics</a> with all 28 critical reviews being positive.)<br /><br />There are probably a lot of reasons why I didn’t rave about this show. I have always stated that I don’t really like most comedies, with a particular distaste for Seinfeld and shows that remind me of it (and boy did <i>Master of None</i> remind me of <i>Seinfeld</i>). Then, as I have said, there is the high annoyance factor that I felt about the characters that I’ve seen. Maybe the show and Ansari would have shown me something if I’d watched more of the episode or a different episode of the series or more episodes of the series? Maybe you have to watch all ten episodes to truly appreciate the show’s genius. The question then becomes whether that is necessarily a good thing, but that’s an issue for another time. Clearly I don’t know enough about the show to deliver a truly informed impression, which is why I didn’t label this as a review of the show.<br /><br />But there is a nagging doubt in my mind, and that is that I can’t truly appreciate this show because at 59 years of age I am far away from being the target audience of this show. Mark Peikert of <i><a href="http://www.thewrap.com/master-of-none-review-aziz-ansari-netflix-comedy-starts-slow-finishes-fantastic/">The Wrap</a></i> wrote the following: “Master of None is more articulate than any other show at putting under a microscope that generation’s neuroses, desires, and ambivalence. The series also happens to be sexy, hilarious, and very moving, a tribute to Ansari’s observational powers and ability to pinpoint the zeitgeist.” But if the reason that I can’t appreciate this show is because I can’t insinuate myself into “that generation’s neuroses, desires, and ambivalence,” is it valid for me to try to review shows for a general audience? Brent McKeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14883838112004433045noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10697975.post-3967327345942696322015-09-19T18:27:00.001-06:002015-09-21T01:39:47.106-06:002015 Emmy Predictions<a href="http://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-yRpOqzuA-2E/Vf38xPx5T7I/AAAAAAAAFWg/YfG8anfd4jA/s1600-h/emmys%25255B3%25255D.jpg"><img align="left" alt="emmys" border="0" src="http://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-HDxnrScpKvk/Vf38xmF7EvI/AAAAAAAAFWk/PQLLKBnNLRs/emmys_thumb.jpg?imgmax=800" height="144" style="background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; border-right: 0px; border-top: 0px; display: inline; float: left; margin: 0px 12px 0px 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" title="emmys" width="197" /></a>I’m going to try to predict this year’s Emmy awards “scientifically” using four basic rules. Two of the rules are Positive, one is Negative, and one is what I guess you could call Neutral or Preferential. There’s also a fifth rule that’s not yet proven. These predictions are based on things I’ve observed about the Emmys from long before I started this Blog and even before I had the Internet. <br /><br />So what are these rules? They’re actually pretty simple:<br /><br /><b>Rule 1: <i>Winners win….until you know, they don’t.</i></b><br />The Emmys are unique among entertainment awards shows in that the same show or people can win year after year. The equivalent at the Oscars would be for last year’s Best Picture winner to win again this year. It doesn’t happen at the Tonys, the Grammys or the Oscars, just the Emmys and any other awards show that touches on TV. And the Emmys tend to give awards to previous season’s winners.<br /><br /><b>Rule 2: <i>The “Hot New Thing” can overturn previous season’s winners, but it’s the academy that decide what the hot new thing is.</i></b><br />Funny thing about the TV awards. The people who choose the nominees and who vote for the winners don’t actually watch a hell of a lot of TV. TV critics (the pros) watch a lot of TV but the people at the TV academy are too busy working making TV shows to actually watch TV shows on a regular basis. What they know about what’s hot and what’s not is generally based on ratings and buzz and whatever&nbsp; they decide is “quality” TV this year.<br /><br /><b>Rule 3:</b> <b><i>Premium cable trumps basic cable which trumps broadcast TV.</i></b><br />And by premium cable I mean HBO. This year HBO had 40 nominations, while Showtime had nine and Cinemax (!) had one. Those 40 nominations for HBO were greater than ABC, CBS, FOX, and NBC combined although when you factor PBS into the mix it is greater. We don’t know yet were streaming video factors into this except to say that while they get more nominations than The CW, Amazon and Netflix have had very limited success.<br /><br /><b>Rule 4: <i>Fantasy and Science Fiction don’t win… unless they come from HBO.</i></b><br />In fact Fantasy and Science Fiction shows almost never get nominations unless they’re on HBO. Battlestar Galactica may have been one of the best shows on all of TV during its run but never earned a Primetime Emmy nomination. Creative Arts Emmys sure, but not Emmy’s from Writing, Directing or Acting, let alone Outstanding Drama Series which are the categories being awarded on Sunday.<br /><br />Let’s take a look at the series and acting categories and apply the rules. I’ll put the rule number that applies to the person or show beside their name.<br /><br /><b>Outstanding Supporting Actor Comedy</b><br /><ul><li>Andre Braugher, <i>Brooklyn Nine-Nine</i>, FOX (2)</li><li>Titus Burgess, <i>Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt</i>, Netflix (2)</li><li>Ty Burrell, <i>Modern Family</i>, ABC (1)</li><li>Adam Driver, <i>Girls</i>, HBO (3)</li><li><b>Tony Hale</b>, <i>Veep</i>, HBO (1, 3)</li><li>Keegan-Michael Key, <i>Key and Peele</i>, Comedy Central</li></ul>&nbsp;Based on this I think it will come down to a battle between the only two actors who have won before, with the edge going to <b>Tony Hale</b> of <i>Veep</i>, who was upset in the voting last year.<br /><br /><b>Outstanding Supporting Actress Comedy</b><br /><ul><li>Mayim Bialik, <i>Big Bang Theory</i>, CBS</li><li>Julie Bowen, <i>Modern Family</i>, ABC (1)</li><li>Anna Chlumsky, <i>Veep</i>, HBO (3)</li><li>Gaby Hoffman, <i>Transparent</i>, Amazon (2)</li><li><b>Allison Janney</b>, <i>Mom</i>, CBS (1)</li><li>Jane Krakowski, <i>Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt</i>, Netflix (2)</li><li>Kate McKinnon, <i>Saturday Night Live</i>, NBC</li><li>Niecy Nash, <i>Getting On</i>, HBO (3)</li></ul>&nbsp;This looks tighter than it probably is. I think that <b>Allison Janney</b> will probably win her second straight Emmy because Bowen’s position as a previous winner goes back three years.I’m not sure how “hot” and “new” <i>Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt</i> and <i>Transparent</i> are. Plus, the fact is that Janney’s role is really closer to being a Lead Actress role, and that always get the attention of the Academy.<br /><br /><b>Outstanding Supporting Actor Drama</b><br /><ul><li>Jonathan Banks, <i>Better Call Saul</i>, AMC (2) </li><li>Jim Carter, <i>Downton Abbey</i>, PBS </li><li>Alan Cumming, <i>The Good Wife</i>, CBS </li><li><i><b>Peter Dinklage</b></i>, <i>Game of Thrones</i>, HBO (1,3,4) </li><li>Michael Kelly, <i>House of Cards</i>, Netflix </li><li>Ben Mendelsohn, <i>Bloodline</i>, Netflix</li></ul>I think it comes down to Peter Dinklage and Jonathon Banks. This is another weird one. Dinklage is the only actor to win for a Science Fiction-Fantasy show in years, because it was on HBO (and he is an amazing actor), but Jonathon Banks has been nominated in the past for playing this character and yet he is playing the character in a “Hot New show.” I think give this category to <b>Jonathon Banks</b>.<br /><br /><b>Outstanding Supporting Actress Drama</b><br /><ul><li><b>Uzo Aduba</b>, <i>Orange Is the New Black</i>, Netflix </li><li>Christine Baranski, <i>The Good Wife</i>, CBS </li><li>Emilia Clarke, <i>Game of Thrones</i>, HBO (3, 4) </li><li>Joanne Froggatt, <i>Downton Abbey</i>, PBS </li><li>Lena Headey, <i>Game of Thrones</i>, HBO (3, 4) </li><li>Christina Hendricks, <i>Mad Men</i>, AMC</li></ul>This is a tough category because the rules really don’t apply. To be sure you have two actresses form an HBO show, but it’s a Fantasy series. None of the actors have won in this category in the last five Emmy shows although four of the six were nominated last year and two of the six were nominated each of the past five Emmys (Baransky and Hendricks). So we have to revert to the WAG Techniques (Wild Ass Guess). As much as I would like to see Christina Hendricks win, because I don’t think she’s ever likely to get a role as good as Joan Harris for a long long time, I am going to put my metaphorical money on <b>Uzo Aduba</b>. <br /><br /><b>Outstanding Lead Actor Comedy</b><br /><ul><li>Anthony Anderson, <i>Black-ish</i>, ABC (2)</li><li>Don Cheadle, <i>House of Lies</i>, Showtime (3) </li><li>Louis C.K., <i>Louie</i>, FX (3) </li><li>Will Forte, <i>The Last Man on Earth</i>, Fox (2) </li><li>Matt LeBlanc, <i>Episodes</i>, Showtime (3) </li><li>William H. Macy, <i>Shameless</i>, Showtime (3) </li><li><b>Jeffrey Tambor</b>, <i>Transparent</i>, Amazon (2)</li></ul>Will Forte and Anthony Anderson are on “Hot New Shows” but I would question just how “Hot” or they really are.<b> Jeffrey Tambor</b> benefits from being on one of the most talked about shows of the 2014-15 season, and the fact that the guy who won four of the past five years, Jim Parsons, wasn’t nominated this time around. Tambor’s my pick here…. unless voters write in Parson’s name.<br /><br /><b>Outstanding Lead Actress Comedy</b><br /><ul><li>Edie Falco, <i>Nurse Jackie</i>, Showtime (1,3) </li><li>Lisa Kudrow, <i>The Comeback</i>, HBO (3) </li><li><b>Julia Louis-Dreyfus</b>, <i>Veep</i>, HBO (1,3) </li><li>Amy Poehler, <i>Parks and Recreation</i>, NBC </li><li>Amy Schumer, <i>Inside Amy Schumer</i>, Comedy Central (2) </li><li>Lily Tomlin, <i>Grace and Frankie</i>, Netflix</li></ul>I’d be shocked if <b>Julia Louis Dreyfus</b> doesn’t take this one. She’s won the past three seasons which, coincidentally, is as long as her show has been on the air. She’s on premium cable, and while Amy Schumer has undeniable talent and has been setting the comedy world on fire, I just don’t think she can beat Dreyfus.<br /><br /><b>Outstanding Lead Actor Drama</b><br /><ul><li>Kyle Chandler, <i>Bloodline</i>, Netflix </li><li>Jeff Daniels, <i>The Newsroom</i>, HBO (1, 3) </li><li><i><b>Jon Hamm</b></i>, <i>Mad Men</i>, AMC </li><li>Bob Odenkirk, <i>Better Call Saul</i>, AMC (2) </li><li>Liev Schreiber, <i>Ray Donovan</i>, Showtime (3) </li><li>Kevin Spacey, <i>House of Cards</i>, Netflix</li></ul>My heart wants to say John Hamm will get his turn now that Bryan Cranston has departed the scene, but the rules are against him. While I realize that Jeff Daniels scored a huge upset over Cranston two years ago by beating him in this category, and is on an HBO show, I’ll give this one to <b>Bob Odenkirk</b> for playing an old <i>Breaking Bad</i> supporting character elevated to the lead on the “Hot New” <i>Better Call Saul</i>.<br /><br /><b>Outstanding Lead Actress Drama</b><br /><ul><li>Claire Danes, <i>Homeland</i>, Showtime (1, 3)&nbsp; </li><li><b>Viola Davis</b>, <i>How to Get Away with Murder</i>, ABC (2) </li><li>Taraji P. Henson, <i>Empire</i>, Fox (2) </li><li>Tatiana Maslany, <i>Orphan Black</i>, BBC America (4) </li><li>Elisabeth Moss, <i>Mad Men</i>, AMC </li><li>Robin Wright, <i>House of Cards</i>, Netflix</li></ul>Two of the hottest new shows of the year face off in this category where the seemingly perpetual winner, Julianna Margulies, wasn’t nominated this time. Claire Danes is a two time winner so she’s a definite prospect, but there are those who think her show has slipped into absurdity. I personally think it comes down to Viola Davis vs. Taraji P. Henson. I’m going to reluctantly come down on the side of <b>Viola Davis</b> (reluctantly because I really don’t like the character or the show) simply because from what I’ve seen Taraji P. Henson’s character, Cookie Lyon, seems to be way over the top. Of course I wouldn’t be surprised if Henson won either.<br /><br /><b>Outstanding Comedy Series</b><br /><ul><li><i>Louie</i>,<i> </i>FX </li><li><i>Modern Family, </i>ABC (1) </li><li><i>Parks and Recreation</i>, NBC </li><li><i>Silicon Valley</i>, HBO (3) </li><li><i>Transparent</i>, Amazon (2) </li><li><i>Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt</i>, Netflix </li><li><b><i>Veep</i></b>, HBO (3)</li></ul>In the past five years <i>Modern Family</i> has won this category five times. It’s probably the safe call to say that it will make it six in a row, but all streaks have to come to an end eventually (don’t they?) and I can definitely see <b><i>Transparent</i></b> knocking he wheels off of the <i>Modern Family</i> juggernaut, because I think it’s time.<br /><br /><b>Outstanding Drama Series</b><br /><ul><li><i>Better Call Saul</i>, AMC (2) </li><li><i>Downton Abbey</i>, PBS </li><li><b><i>Game of Thrones</i></b>, HBO (3, 4) </li><li><i>Homeland</i>, Showtime (1, 3) </li><li><i>House of Cards</i>, Netflix </li><li><i>Mad Men</i>, AMC (1) </li><li><i>Orange Is the New Black</i>, Netflix</li></ul><i>Breaking Bad</i> not being on the list opens things up a lot. <i>Homeland</i> and <i>Mad Men</i> have both won in this category in the past but neither show was at its best this past season and the same can be said of non-winner <i>House of Cards</i>. <i>Game of Thrones</i> has the “Fantasy” label attached. That leaves us with <i>Downton Abbey</i>, <i>Orange Is the New Black, </i>and <i>Better Call Saul</i>. Because <b><i>Better Call Saul</i></b> wins the “Hot New Show” description, and I’m not sure the TV Academy has quite wrapped its collective heads around Netflix, I’ll make that my choice in this category.<br /><br />The 67th Annual Emmy Awards will be seen Sunday, September 20 on FOX. Watch this space to see how well I and the “rules” I came up with do.<br /><br /><b>Update:</b> The rules had a .600 Batting Average which is really rather good, although I will have to tinker with them more for next year. Details to follow.Brent McKeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14883838112004433045noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10697975.post-64837126368599822882015-06-28T03:48:00.001-06:002015-06-28T03:48:37.581-06:00My Latest Blog<p>I just started a new blog called <a href="http://whatithinkabouttit.blogspot.ca/">That’s What I Think About That</a>. Don’t bother going there yet; there’s nothing there yet. It’s a work in progress that hasn’t progressed very much. What I wanted was a place where I can vent my spleen over things that don’t exactly fit into a blog focussed on TV. Like the US Supreme Court ruling on Same Sex Marriage and the reactions of some people to that decision. Or NHL expansion to Las Vegas and other places. Or the wrong-headedness of fixed election dates in Canada.</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p>Posting at the new blog will be sporadic – which I know is a big joke give the way this blog has gone of late. Still this is a way for me to put my opinions out there with the illusion that someone might read it. But it’s mostly just for me.</p> Brent McKeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14883838112004433045noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10697975.post-2475116870485383822015-05-14T02:20:00.001-06:002015-05-14T02:21:01.873-06:00Problem Resolved<p>Title says it all. It was related to two factor authentication from Google and the need for a Google generated password to access Google websites with third-party, non-browser tools. Complicated and I tend to like things that are simple.</p> Brent McKeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14883838112004433045noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10697975.post-78564849877701465782015-05-13T02:06:00.004-06:002015-05-13T02:07:06.873-06:00Troubles<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:View>Normal</w:View> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:TrackMoves/> <w:TrackFormatting/> <w:PunctuationKerning/> <w:ValidateAgainstSchemas/> <w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:DoNotPromoteQF/> <w:LidThemeOther>EN-CA</w:LidThemeOther> <w:LidThemeAsian>X-NONE</w:LidThemeAsian> <w:LidThemeComplexScript>X-NONE</w:LidThemeComplexScript> <w:Compatibility> <w:BreakWrappedTables/> <w:SnapToGridInCell/> <w:WrapTextWithPunct/> <w:UseAsianBreakRules/> <w:DontGrowAutofit/> <w:SplitPgBreakAndParaMark/> <w:DontVertAlignCellWithSp/> <w:DontBreakConstrainedForcedTables/> <w:DontVertAlignInTxbx/> <w:Word11KerningPairs/> <w:CachedColBalance/> </w:Compatibility> <w:BrowserLevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</w:BrowserLevel> <m:mathPr> <m:mathFont m:val="Cambria Math"/> <m:brkBin m:val="before"/> <m:brkBinSub m:val="&#45;-"/> <m:smallFrac m:val="off"/> <m:dispDef/> <m:lMargin m:val="0"/> <m:rMargin m:val="0"/> <m:defJc m:val="centerGroup"/> <m:wrapIndent m:val="1440"/> <m:intLim m:val="subSup"/> <m:naryLim m:val="undOvr"/> </m:mathPr></w:WordDocument></xml><![endif]--><br />I am officially having problems posting to this blog. <br /><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">In the past I’ve used Microsoft Live Writer to post new entries to my blog, and before that Microsoft Word. However during my recent almost year long hiatus from blogging, something has apparently changed and I can’t use these tools. When I try I get the following error message when using Live Writer (my ancient version of Word – 2007 – gives me even less explanation):</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Windows Live Writer was not able to log in to the remote server using the username and password.</i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Please check that the information is correct and try again.</i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Needless to say, the information is correct but no amount of trying again will give me the desired result. Apparently this might have something to do with two-factor identification but for the life of me I can’t figure out how to make this right. As it stands right now I can mostly post by cutting and pasting – which is what I’m doing with this post – but that gets old fast.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Any help anyone can offer me would be greatly appreciated</div>Brent McKeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14883838112004433045noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10697975.post-46011054084733863232015-05-12T04:53:00.002-06:002015-05-12T04:54:31.712-06:00NBC Upfronts 2015-16<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Ba5OdyC5vjY/VVHbIYR_73I/AAAAAAAABrw/Ln8k6kXmYUA/s1600/NBC_logo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Ba5OdyC5vjY/VVHbIYR_73I/AAAAAAAABrw/Ln8k6kXmYUA/s200/NBC_logo.jpg" width="200" /></a>It’s that time of year again when the US broadcast TV networks cancel the shows they decided didn’t work last season and unveil the new shows that they believe will sweep up audiences in droves… most of which will be cancelled this time next year.And I’m going to try to write about them at least until I’m overwhelmed by despair about the new season and retreat into watching what I always watch.<br /><br />As always NBC led off the upfront season although unlike in previous years they chose to introduce their new line-up on a Sunday rather than the traditional Monday. By turns the new offerings are vaguely intriguing, yawn worthy, and disappointing. First the cancellations (some of which were in the “blink and you’ve missed it” category of midseason replacements).<br /><br /><span style="color: red;"><b>Cancelled</b></span><br /><span style="color: black;"><i>Constantine</i>, <i>State of Affairs</i>, <i>Marry Me</i>,<i> About A Boy</i>, <i>One Big Happy</i>, <i>A to Z</i>, <i>Allegiance</i>, <i>Bad Judge</i>, <i>Parenthood</i>, <i>Park &amp; Recreation</i>, <i>Working The Engels</i></span><br /><i></i><br /><span style="color: red;"><b>Renewed</b> </span><span style="color: black;">(not counting summer series)</span><br /><span style="color: black;"><i>Chicago Fire</i>, <i>Chicago PD</i>, <i>Grimm</i>, <i>Hollywood Game Night</i>, <i>Law &amp; Order SVU</i>, <i>Biggest Loser</i>,<i> The Blacklist</i>, <i>Celebrity Apprentice</i>, <i>The Mysteries of Laura</i>, <i>Undateable</i></span><br /><br /><span style="color: red;"><b>New Shows</b></span><br /><span style="color: black;">Before Christmas: <i>Blindspot</i>, <i>Heartbreaker</i>, <i>The Best Time Ever with Neil Patrick Harris</i>, <i>Heroes Reborn</i>, <i>The Player</i>, <i>People Are Talking</i></span><br />Midseason: <i>Coach</i>, <i>Hot And Bothered</i>, <i>Chicago Med</i>, <i>Crowded</i>, <i>Emerald City</i>, <i>Game of Silence</i>, <i>Little Big Shots</i>, <i>Shades of Blue</i>, <i>Superstore</i>, <i>You And Me And The End Of The World</i><br /><br /><b><span style="font-size: small;">Fall Schedule by day</span></b><br /><b></b><br /><b></b><br /><b><span style="color: red; font-size: small;">Monday</span></b><br /><span style="color: black; font-size: small;"><b>8-10 p.m.</b> <i>The Voice</i></span><br /><span style="font-size: small;"><b>10-11 p.m.</b> <i>BLINDSPOT</i></span><br /><i></i><br /><span style="color: red; font-size: small;"><b></b></span><br /><span style="color: red; font-size: small;"><b>Tuesday</b></span><br /><span style="color: black; font-size: small;"><b>8-9 p.m. </b><i>The Voice</i></span><br /><span style="font-size: small;"><b>9-10 p.m. </b><i>HEARTBREAKER</i></span><br /><span style="font-size: small;"><b>10-11 p.m.</b> <i>THE BEST TIME EVER WITH NEIL PATRICK HARRIS</i> (until November)</span><br /><span style="font-size: small;"><i>Chicago Fire </i>(starting in November)</span><br /><b></b><br /><b><span style="color: red; font-size: small;">Wednesday</span></b><br /><span style="color: black; font-size: small;"><b>8-9 p.m.</b> <i>The Mysteries of Laura</i></span><br /><span style="font-size: small;"><b>9-10 p.m.<i> </i></b><i>Law &amp; Order SVU</i></span><br /><b>10-11 p.m.</b> <i>Chicago PD</i><br /><br /><b><span style="color: red;">Thursday</span></b><br /><span style="color: black;"><b>8-9 p.m.</b> <i>HEROES REBORN</i></span><br /><b>9-10 p.m.</b> <i>The Blacklist</i><br /><b>10-11 p.m.</b> <i>THE PLAYER</i><br /><b></b><br /><b></b><br /><b><span style="color: red;">Friday</span></b><br /><span style="color: black;"><b>8-8:30 p.m. </b><i>Undateable</i></span><br /><b>8:30-9 p.m.</b><i> PEOPLE ARE TALKING</i><br /><b>9-10 p.m. </b><i>Grimm</i><br /><b>10-11 p.m. </b><i>Dateline</i><br /><i></i><br /><b></b><br /><b>Summaries</b><br /><b></b><br />I’ve managed to see the trailers for most of these despite YouTube region blocking so I shall try to summarize largely without Network press releases (except for actor names).<br /><br /><i>Blindspot</i> begins with a bag left in the middle of Time Square with a tag that says “Call FBI.” Inside is a naked woman (Jamie Alexander) covered with tattoos, all of which are new. “Jane Doe” has been stripped of her memories and has no idea who she is or why her body is covered in tattoos. One tattoo says to call FBI Agent Kurt Weller (Sullivan Stapleton) who has no idea why he’s being called in on this case or why his name is written in large letters on Jane Doe’s back, or for that matter the meaning of the tattoos. Over time several things become apparent: the tattoos on Jane’s back represent clues to crimes that they are to solve, and that Jane has considerable skills that she hasn’t forgotten that will help them solve those crimes.<br /><br /><i>Heartbreaker</i> stars Melissa George as Dr. Alex Pantierre, one of a handful of female heart transplant surgeons in the world. She is also the head of new technologies at her hospital. As usual in medical dramas she is someone who breaks the rules if it can possibly help her patients and is more than willing to try innovative procedures when necessary. Also as usual in medical dramas (particularly medical dramas with female leads) she struggles to balance her professional life with her personal life.<br /><br />NBC didn’t do a trailer for <i>The Best Time Ever With Neil Patrick Harris</i>, so I’ll have to go to the network press release: “Complete with stunts, skits, pranks, audience interaction, musical numbers, giveaways and unlimited surprises, this show proves that anything can happen, and it can happen to you. Based on the wildly popular British hit <i>Ant &amp; Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway.”</i><br /><i></i><br />There also isn’t a trailer for <i>Heroes Reborn</i> beyond a few teasers from the Super Bowl in February which basically announced that the show would be coming back – as a 13 episode miniseries. As I understand it, some but not all of the original cast (including Jack Coleman and Masi Oka) will be returning for the mini-series while new people with powers will be emerging, most notably Zach Levi from <i>Chuck</i>.<br /><br /><i>The Player</i> starts with an interesting concept. Philip Winchester plays Alex Kane, Las Vegas’s top – and most flamboyant – security expert. Following the murder of his wife, Alex is drawn into a complex game. In a city where people will bet on anything, the ultimate game is betting on whether Alex can stop a crime from taking place, or even survive the tasks put before him. In this “game” the house consists of three people: Alex – the Player, Cassandra King (Charity Wakefield) – the Dealer, and the mysterious Mr. Johnson (Wesley Snipes) – the Pit Boss. If Alex is able to accomplish the tasks put before him, he might just be able to get revenge for the death of his wife.<br /><br /><br /><b>Comments</b><br /><b></b><br />One thing I’ve noticed in going over the NBC shows that have been cancelled and renewed is just how few NBC shows I watched in the past season. I watched <i>State Of Affairs</i> and mostly didn’t find it as laughable as I had expected given that it was Katherine Heigl as a CIA agent who advised the President on national security threats. And yet I don’t find myself mourning its passing. I watched <i>Chicago Fire</i> and <i>Chicago PD</i> for quite a while but in the past year or so I’ve basically given up on those as well. Basically the only thing I watch on NBC is <i>The Blacklist</i>.<br /><br />The biggest thing to note is the near absence of situation comedy in the fall line-up. Not counting the Neil Patrick Harris series, which sounds like it might turn into something of a mess, the only comedies in the line-up are the returning <i>Undateable</i> and the new <i>People Are Talking</i>. It is something of a sign that the only two comedies at the start of the season are both scheduled for Friday night before <i>Grimm</i>. Setting aside the fact that this is the “Friday night death slot” (because after all CBS at least seems to thrive on Fridays) <i>People are Talking</i> at least definitely doesn’t fall into the NBC comedy tradition as exemplified by <i>Seinfeld</i>, <i>Fraser</i>, <i>The Office</i>, <i>Community</i>, and <i>Parks And Recreation</i>. Then again the latter two series didn’t exactly set the ratings world on fire. Moreover last season, when NBC made a major push to do sit coms, the results were pretty disastrous with most of the shows dying a quick and for the most part well-deserved death. Based on the trailer that I saw, <i>People Are Talking</i> seems to be playing things very safe which is far different from the edgy sort of comedy that we generally expect from NBC.<br /><br /><i>Blindspot </i>and <i>The Player</i> both seem interesting although they also seem to be trying to replicate the success of NBC’s one big drama success that isn’t produced by Dick Wolf, namely <i>The Blacklist</i>. <i>Blindspot</i> is probably closest to what <i>The Blacklist</i> in that there’s quite obviously a massive conspiracy behind the scenes that “Jane Doe” and Agent Weller will have to unravel. The question is whether audiences will have the patience to stick with the show if it is an unrelenting in pursuing the show’s mytharc, particularly when the show is opposite the “simpler” <i>NCIS: Los Angeles</i> and <i>Castle</i>. Initially at least <i>The Player</i> seems likely to be more episodic and therefore easier to access for viewers. Plus it has <i>The Blacklist</i> as a lead in, although the ratings for that show have been slipping, probably because it is going against Scandal and CBS comedies on Thursday night.<br /><br />I’m not sure what to say about <i>Heartbreaker</i>. The whole thing of the female lead being forced to balance her personal and professional lives is <i>such</i> a cliché. Take that away and I’m not sure there’s enough there for the show to engage its audience. I wonder if this is meant as a placeholder to be replaced, when it inevitably crashes and burns, with Dick Wolf’s latest opus, <i>Chicago Medical</i>.<br /><br />Finally something needs to be said about the revival of <i>Heroes</i> as <i>Heroes Reborn</i>. I don’t know why it’s happening given how quickly and totally the show collapsed in it’s first run. The cynic in me says that executives at NBC looked at the success of the Marvel movie/TV franchises (including <i>Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.</i>), not to mention <i>Arrow</i> and <i>The Flash</i> and even <i>iZombie</i> on The CW and said: “We need a superhero show. Okay so we blew it with <i>Constantine</i> but superheroes are still hot. Let’s take another run at doing <i>Heroes</i>. We’ll do it as a limited series, and if it works out maybe we’ll bring it back in 2016 as a full series.” And since I can’t think of a better reason why they revived this, I think the cynical view wins.<br /><br />Final assessment of what NBC is giving us: there’s very little here that I actually find engaging. There are a couple of shows that I’ll try but I honestly don’t think much of their chances for survival. Nothing here strikes me as a genuine sustainable hit.<br /><b> </b>Brent McKeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14883838112004433045noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10697975.post-80413898497020761592014-05-10T20:45:00.003-06:002014-05-11T05:00:39.020-06:00Prelude to Upfronts: Cancellations and Pick-ups<h1></h1>Before I started this blog, the whole business of “Network Upfronts” was as foreign as the Greek language to me. All I knew is that sometime in May the US networks would announce their new shows and cancel the unsuccessful ones from the previous year, and then the Canadian networks would pick them over to find the “best of the lot” for us, and conveniently forget that half of the shows that they considered the “best of the lot” were either cancelled by the end of the season. <br /><br />Upfronts used to be the day when a Network President and his (and they were all men for a long time) would stand in front of the assembled masses of advertisers and the ink-stained wretches from the entertainment media and announce which shows have been cancelled and which have been picked up, and what next season’s TV schedule would look like. The advertisers would then – over the next few weeks – decide what shows they’d make their media buys on, and how much they’d be willing to pay. Meanwhile the entertainment media would, wittingly or not, promote the new shows with information even thought they’d basically only seen the few clips provided by the network at the Upfronts. The key point was that the networks announced all of their changes at <i>their</i> Upfront day.<br /><br />In recent years things have changed. Networks announce their renewals and their cancellations before the Upfronts – days and sometimes even weeks before – and they’ve taken to announcing shows they’ve picked up in advance as well. In the past I’ve held off from reporting or commenting on these announcements, preferring to wait until a network’s upfront day. I’m not sure that that approach is practical anymore. So what I’ve decided to do is to list the cancellations and the pickups before the upfronts, and comment on the percentage of available time that the proposed new shows will be taking up on each network.<br /><br /><b>ABC</b><br /><b>Cancellations:</b> <i>The Assets</i>, <i>Back In The Game</i>,<i> Killer Women</i>,<i> Lucky 7</i>, <i>Mind Games</i>, Once <i>Upon A Time In Wonderland</i>, <i>Mixology</i>, <i>Trophy Wife</i>, <i>Betrayal</i>, <i>The Neighbors</i>, <i>Super Fun Night</i>, <i>Suburgatory</i>, <br /><b>Status Unknown:</b> <i>The Taste</i>, <i>Black Box</i><br /><b>Picked Up:</b> Dramas <b>–</b>&nbsp;<i>American Crime</i>, <i>The Astronauts Wives Club</i>,<i>The Club</i>, <i>Forever</i>, <i>How To Get Away With Murder</i>, <i>Marvel’s Agent Carter</i>, <i>Secrets &amp; Lies</i>, <i>The Whispers</i><br />Comedies – <i>Black-ish</i>, <i>Galavant</i>, <i>Manhattan Love Story</i>, <i>Selfie</i><br /><b>Update</b><i>: </i>Two comedies that I missed: <i>Cristela </i>and <i>Fresh Off The Boat</i>&nbsp; which were announced at the same time as the renewal of <i>Last Man Standing</i>.<br /><i><br /></i><b>Comments:</b> Eight hours of Dramas, four half-hours of Comedies. I was saddened but not surprised by the cancellation of <i>Trophy Wife</i>. The kids, and in particular Burt, were great and it was fun to see Bradley Whitford playing straight man both to the kids and the women in his life. If this show had a better time slot – like between <i>The Middle</i> and <i>Modern Family</i> instead of after another newcomer, <i>The Goldbergs</i> – I think it could have worked.<br /><br /><b>CBS</b><br /><b></b><br /><b>Cancellations:</b> <i>How I Met Your Mother</i>, <i>We Are Men, <i>Bad Teacher</i>, <i>The Crazy Ones</i>, <i>Friends With Better Lives</i>, <i>Hostages</i>, <i>Intelligence</i></i><br /><b>Picked Up:</b> Dramas – <i>Battle Creek</i>, <i>CSI: Cyber</i>, <i>Madam Secretary</i>, <i>NCIS: New Orleans</i>, <i>Scorpion</i>, <i>Stalker</i><br />Comedies – <i>The McCarthys</i>, <i>The Odd Couple</i><br /><br /><b>Comments:</b> Six hours of Dramas, two half-hours of Comedies. Only two survivors of the new shows, <i>Mom</i> and <i>The Millers</i>. I think that the limited series nature of <i>Hostages</i> was a bad choice to go against <i>Castle</i>, and <i>Intelligence</i> was just pretty bad. Disappointed that the cut <i>The Crazy Ones</i>, a series with a stand-out cast that I really enjoyed. Unfortunately stand-out cast equals expensive cast, which was probably as much a cause of the show’s demise as the ratings.<br /><br /><b>F</b><b>OX</b><br /><b></b><br /><b>Cancellations:</b> <i>American Dad</i> (moving to TBS),<i> The Cleveland Show</i>,<i> Raising Hope</i>,<i> The X-Factor</i>, <i>Almost Human</i>,<i> Dads</i>,<i> Enlisted</i>, <i>Surviving Jack</i>, <i>Rake</i><br /><b>Picked Up:</b> Dramas – <i>Backstrom</i>, <i>Empire</i>, <i>Gotham</i>, <i>Hieroglyph</i>, <i>Red Band Society</i><br />Comedies – <i>Last Man On Earth</i>, <i>Mulaney</i>, <i>Weird Loners</i> <br /><br /><b>Comments:</b> Five hours of Dramas, three half-hours of Comedies. All of the professional TV critics are mourning the loss of <i>Enlisted</i> but I never saw the show (because the premise sounded dumb to me) so I can’t comment. I really liked <i>Almost Human</i>, the “cop and robot” buddy show set in a not totally dystopian future. It wasn’t great but I liked it better than THe Following. So sue me.<br /><br /><b>NBC</b><br /><b></b><br /><b>Cancellations:</b> <i>Ironside</i>, <i>Sean Saves The World</i>, <i>Welcome To The Family</i>, <i>The Michael J. Fox Show</i>, <i>Believe</i>, <i>Community</i>, <i>Crisis</i>, <i>Dracula</i>, <i>Revolution</i>, <i>Growing Up Fisher</i><br /><b>Status Unknown:</b> <i>Parenthood</i><br /><b>Picked Up:</b> Dramas – <i>Allegiance</i>, <i>Constantine</i>, <i>Emerald City</i>, <i>The Mysteries of Laura</i>, <i>Odyssey</i>, <i>Shades Of Blue</i>, <i>State of Affairs</i><br />Comedies – <i>A to Z</i>, <i>Bad Judge</i>, <i>Marry Me</i>, <i>Mission Control</i>, <i>Mr. Robinson</i>, <i>One Big Happy</i>, <i>Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt</i><br /><br /><b>Comments:</b> Seven hours of Dramas, seven half-hours of Comedy. It is a mark of how far NBC has fallen that I can’t think of one show that they cancelled that I am really going to miss. I know the professional critics and a devoted fan base loved Community with a love that burned like the Sun, but I never watched it, being totally turned off by the presence of Chevy Chase. BTW, there apparently hasn't been a decision on <i>Parenthood </i>because of negotiations over the number of episodes stars of the show will appear in. The network weasels want the leads to do nine episodes of the total of thirteen planned, and they're balking at that idea<br /><b>Update</b>: While the renewal of <i>Parenthood</i> has not been announced officially, the cast have apparently agreed to a deal which would see them each participate in a reduced number of episodes within a 13 episode season, thus allowing the series to have a resolution.<br /><br /><b>The CW</b> <br /><b>Cancellations:</b> <i>Nikita</i>, <i>The Carrie Diaries</i>, <i>The Tomorrow People</i>, <i>Star Crossed</i><br /><b>Picked Up:</b> <i>The Flash</i>, <i>iZombie</i>, <i>Jane The Virgin</i>, <i>The Messengers </i><br /><i></i><br /><b>Comments:</b> Four hours of new series, all Dramas. Yawn. The only show I watch on The CW is <i>Arrow</i>. I suppose I’m sort of surprised that a show about 16th century royalty and religious wars (<i>Reign</i>) got renewed, and I suppose that <i>The 100</i> is the sort of show I generally like but really, I’ve got nothing.Brent McKeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14883838112004433045noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10697975.post-67935363815986915252014-04-29T15:55:00.001-06:002014-04-29T15:55:43.858-06:00Late Night Turnover<a href="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-RcbH6h4NYxE/U2AfR4ogEaI/AAAAAAAABbA/mywLZ74vrkw/s1600-h/craig-ferguson%25255B3%25255D.jpg"><img align="left" alt="craig-ferguson" border="0" src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-tQ3iw2DzUj8/U2AfSabqZpI/AAAAAAAABbI/hOalG2r3hkQ/craig-ferguson_thumb%25255B1%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" height="254" style="background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; border-right: 0px; border-top: 0px; display: inline; float: left; margin: 0px 14px 0px 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" title="craig-ferguson" width="367" /></a>So Craig Ferguson has announced that he’ll be leaving the <i>Late Late Show</i> in December of 2014. This the the fourth of the broadcast network late night talk shows to either replace their hosts or announce that their hosts will be leaving within a year. First Leno hands off The <i>Tonight Show</i> to Jimmy Fallon, which necessitates Fallon handing off <i>Late Night</i> to Seth Meyers. Then you had David Letterman quitting <i>The Late Show With David Letterman</i> and being replaced with Stephen Colbert – the comedian, not the character he plays on <i>The Colbert Report</i> – and now Craig Ferguson is going away. Only Jimmy Kimmel remains from last year’s hosts.<br /><br />Which brings us to the question of who will replace Ferguson? Of the three replacements – Fallon, Meyers and Colbert – only one was a sure thing before the replacement took place and that was Fallon. His deal to replace Leno was in place for quite some time. For the others, there was a lot of speculation about who would, or should get the job. In fact I was working on a piece for this long dormant blog of mine about who should replace Letterman when they announced Colbert. I can’t remember now who I was coming out in favour of, but it wasn’t Colbert. <br /><br />At the same time that I was trying to figure out who should replace Letterman, some people were being quite vocal about putting someone “different” from the basic “Straight White Guy” in the host’s chair, and they seemed to pick on The Late Show as a place to start “the revolution.” To a degree they have a valid point. Of the late night talk show hosts out there, and this includes syndication and cable shows as well as the broadcast networks, the only ones who aren’t “Straight White Guys” are Chelsea Handler on E! Network’s <i>Chelsea Lately</i>, and Arsenio Hall on the syndicated <i>Arsenio Hall Show</i>. And Handler is leaving her show this Fall when her contract with E! comes to an end… which led to speculation that she was a candidate for the <i>Late Show</i> job and is a candidate for the <i>Late Late Show</i> position, rumours that have been denied by both CBS and Handler herself. <br /><br />Current speculation – and I don’t know who is doing the speculating , I just got this stuff from Mark Evanier’s blog – is that John Oliver from <i>The Daily Show</i> or Neil Patrick Harris (formerly from How <i>I Met Your Mother</i>) are leading candidates. However Oliver (Straight White Guy) has a two year contract with HBO to do a late night talk show satirizing current events called Last <i>Week Tonight with John Oliver</i>, which probably knocks him out of the running. Harris (Gay White Guy) has had experience both as a comedic actor and as an awards show host on numerous occasions so he’s a good candidate. However he and his family have recently moved to New York, and after many years of their being no late night talk shows in New York except Letterman, three of the five are now New York based. I think CBS would probably prefer to have at least one Los Angeles based host. So maybe the field is open to a different prospect. <br /><br />Even though the people who wanted someone who was not a “Straight White Guy” for the <i>Late Show</i> had a point about the lack of diversity among late night talk show hosts, the <i>Late Show</i> was probably the wrong venue for that fight. The network’s big late night show is not a proper venue for someone coming new to the game of hosting a talk show. That’s one of the reasons why many people would not have been upset to see Ferguson take over for Letterman; it would have seemed like a natural progression (it wasn’t going to happen though because Craig had apparently made up his mind to leave well before Dave announced his departure). On the other hand the slot after the late night show is a logical place give potential new hosts a chance to show their stuff. Think of it as a farm team for the major leagues. Conan O’Brien, Jimmy Fallon, Craig Ferguson were all people who had track records in comedy, either as writers (O’Brien) or actors and/or stand-ups (Ferguson, Fallon and even Letterman) but no experience hosting talk shows before they got the show after The Show. Leno didn’t go that route, but he was the regular replacement host for Johnny Carson which was probably the next best thing. Sometimes it doesn’t work. Craig Kilborn, who hosted <i>The Late Late Show</i> for five years between Tom Snyder and Craig Ferguson, hated the experience and seems to have pretty much left the entertainment business. Conan’s time at <i>The Tonight Show</i> was a disaster, although that was probably because Leno didn’t want to go that time. But Letterman was a success, and so far Fallon seems to be succeeding, and I doubt that would have been the case had NBC announced that Seth Meyers was going directly from <i>Saturday Night Live</i> to <i>The Tonight Show</i>. So the opportunity exists for someone who is a “Not Straight White Guy” to get this job.<br /><br />Do I have a candidate? Well as a matter of fact yes. I’m not sure that this person wants the job and I’m doubting that this person is on the top of anyone else’s list but my candidate is………<br /><br /><a href="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-adlsY4qxr-s/U2AfTIxyJdI/AAAAAAAABbQ/HvWSMALGRtw/s1600-h/aisha-tyler%25255B3%25255D.jpg"><img alt="aisha-tyler" border="0" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-oYcq1MVgX2c/U2AfThzMgSI/AAAAAAAABbY/pZQk_Y_-gto/aisha-tyler_thumb%25255B1%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" height="361" style="background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; border-right: 0px; border-top: 0px; display: block; float: none; margin: 10px auto 9px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" title="aisha-tyler" width="284" /></a><br /><div align="center"><b>Aisha Tyler</b></div><div align="left">I think that Tyler has great qualifications beyond being a Straight Black Woman. She’s well known as an actress (<i>Ghost Whisperer</i>, <i>Friends</i>), stand-up comedian, host (the current incarnation of <i>Whose Line Is It Anyway</i> on The CW), podcast host (the <i>Girl on Guy</i> podcast) and daytime talk show co-host (<i>The Talk</i>) on CBS. And Les Moonves knows her because one of the other co-hosts on <i>The Talk</i> is Moonves’s wife Julie Chen. As I’ve said, I doubt that she’ll get the job, but I think she’d be a great choice.</div>Brent McKeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14883838112004433045noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10697975.post-90829602165954787362013-10-12T05:18:00.000-06:002013-10-12T05:25:12.790-06:00First Comedy Cancelled No Surprise<a href="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-iitCfI2KLjI/UlkuYzJP_3I/AAAAAAAABZQ/RmSK_rWqVWc/s1600-h/We%252520are%252520men%25255B2%25255D.jpg"><img align="right" alt="We are men" border="0" height="184" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-e25BjidRKTc/UlkuZhFHGpI/AAAAAAAABZY/gvrpMe0JeEY/We%252520are%252520men_thumb.jpg?imgmax=800" style="background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; border-right: 0px; border-top: 0px; display: inline; float: right; margin: 0px 0px 13px 12px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" title="We are men" width="244" /></a>It’s <i>We Are Men</i>.<br /><br />And I’m not kidding that it wasn’t a surprise. There are so many reasons why this show was going to fail that would be apparent to anyone who isn’t a network TV executive that it really is a shock to me that any network would pick it up. Let’s go through them shall we.<br /><br />1. <i>The central plot device </i><i>– guys coming together and bonding.</i><br />Without resorting to notes I can tell you of two previous series where this central plot device: CBS’s <i>Welcome To The Commodore</i> and ABC’s <i>Carpoolers</i>. The former featured a young man moving into a historic hotel and being taken under the collective wings of the people living there, including the supposedly wiser older man (played in that case by Jeffrey Tambor; in this show it was Tony Shaloub). For the latter I’m going to have to hit IMDb and Wikipedia because memories for failed TV shows isn’t encyclopaedic and this one was gone and forgotten so fast that it would make your head spin. Oh wait, it wasn’t; it lasted 13 episodes. It was just forgotten so fast that it would make your head spin. It was about four guys who carpool together, each with different problems at home. Even reading the descriptions in the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carpoolers">Wikipedia article</a> makes me want to turn off my monitor. Suffice it to say that this sort of group of men getting together comedy doesn’t fly very well in the ratings.<br /><br />2. <i>The other part of the central plot device </i><i>– Guys trying to regain their masculinity:</i> <br />If I’m not mistaken we went through a recent spate of comedies that looked at how men were trying to regain their lost masculinity. It was back in the 2011-2012 season, and only one of those shows is still in the line-up. That was the season of such gems as <i>How To Be A Gentleman</i> (the first comedy cancelled that season), <i>Man Up!</i> (which, from looking at the description, is also one of the shows with the first problem – I forgot that this one even existed, lucky me), and the too horrible for words <i>Work It!</i> The only show to survive that trend was <i>Last Man Standing</i> which is still on and is Tim Allen reviving his old <i>Home Improvement</i> series with daughters instead of sons and apparently a lot other similarities that showed up after I gave up on watching this show…about three weeks after it debuted.<br /><br />3. <i>Show killer Jerry O’Connell:</i> That’s right, I’m labelling Jerry O’Connell a show killer. Take a look at the record. Since <i>Sliders</i>, O’Connell has been a regular on <i>Crossing Jordan</i>, <i>Carpoolers</i>, <i>Do Not Disturb</i>, and <i>The Defenders</i>. Of those series, only <i>Crossing Jordan</i> lasted more than 18 episodes, and that is largely due to the fact that O’Connell’s part wasn’t the lead or even the co-lead. Crossing Jordan was very much Jill Hennessy’s show while O’Connell was the detective who usually worked with her and occasionally expressed romantic feelings towards her. Of the other three series, <i>Carpoolers</i> lasted 13 episodes with O’Connell as one of the four title characters, <i>Do Not Disturb</i> aired 3 episodes (two or three others were made but mercifully never aired), and <i>The Defenders</i> (where he was equally billed with Jim Belushi and was in a semi-dramatic role for the first time since <i>Crossing Jordan</i>), last 18 episodes.<br /><br />4. <i>A guy in a Speedo:</i> In this case it was Jerry O’Connell, which makes it worse, but really pretty much any guy who isn’t an Olympic swimmer wearing a Speedo is going to make a show a failure. I’m fine with nudity and near nudity on TV – I actually applauded the producers of <i>NYPD Blue</i> for having Dennis Franz bare his butt – but there are some boundaries that just shouldn’t be crossed and a guy in a Speedo - aka a Banana Hammock – is one of them.<br /><br /><i>We Are Men</i> will be replaced at 8:30 p.m. (Eastern) by <i>2 Broke Girls</i> which had been at 9 p.m. Reruns of <i>The Big Bang Theory</i> will air in the 9 p.m. time slot for the next three weeks. <i>Mike and Molly</i> will return to that time slot on November 4.Brent McKeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14883838112004433045noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10697975.post-88323133780575219372013-10-06T03:34:00.001-06:002013-10-06T03:35:30.241-06:00The First Series Cancelled Is…<a href="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-PgRBvBcgnwk/UlEuDxhOZ0I/AAAAAAAABYo/NRR90pXk75w/s1600-h/Lucky_7_logo%25255B2%25255D.jpg"><img align="left" alt="Lucky_7_logo" border="0" height="105" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-9Yp0LudEd9k/UlEuEfA2LGI/AAAAAAAABYw/hl47FSdCKis/Lucky_7_logo_thumb.jpg?imgmax=800" style="background-image: none; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-top-width: 0px; display: inline; float: left; margin: 0px 10px 0px 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" title="Lucky_7_logo" width="244" /></a>The ironically named <i>Lucky 7 </i>after two episodes. The second episode of the ABC Tuesday night drama had a 0.7 rating in the 18-49 demographic (which we know are the only people whose buying habits count).<br /><br />The show had ton of problems. It was part of an all-new Tuesday line-up and aired an hour after the heavily touted blockbuster <i>Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.</i> The lead-in for <i>Lucky 7</i> was the new comedy <i>Trophy Wife</i>. Neither <i>Trophy Wife</i> nor <i>Lucky 7</i> were given a heavy promotional push by the network before the start of the season. It had a cast of unknows.<br /><br />There’s one other thing, and I’m not sure it’s accurate but I think it leads into something that is accurate. More than one writer has claimed that people don’t like shows about lottery winners. Of course it’s not exactly easy to find shows in the past about lottery winners, but let’s let that slide.A bigger problem for the show as far as I can see is that it’s an ensemble drama where we have very little investment in what the characters are doing. There is a very long history of shows with that sort of premise dying quickly on the vine. Successful ensemble dramas – shows like <i>Lost</i> or <i>The West Wing</i> grab you with dramatic stories and make you want to be involved with the characters. It isn’t easy to do; for all the <i>Losts</i> and <i>West Wings</i> there are shows like <i>Reunion</i>, <i>Six Degrees Of Separation</i>, and <i>The Nine</i> that are dismal failures. An ensemble drama can work if it delivers a cohesive group dynamic with people we like and can identify with quickly, and dramatic situations that people can relate to. <i>Lucky 7</i> clearly didn’t do this.<br /><br />ABC’s immediate plan for the time slot is to have reruns of their hit Thursday night series Scandal fill the slot, opposite new episodes of <i>Person of Interest</i> on CBS and <i>Chicago Fire</i> on NBC.Brent McKeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14883838112004433045noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10697975.post-18092926444143788282013-09-25T03:44:00.001-06:002013-09-25T03:44:54.784-06:00I’m Ba-ackJust wanted to let you know that I’ll be back reviewing this season’s new shows in the next day or two. <br /><br />Who am, you ask? I’m Brent McKee the proprietor of this little corner of the Internet that is forever England. No, wait, that’s something else. Oh right; that is forever maintained for the ramblings of a Canadian who is outside the preferred demographic for the TV audience about American TV. That’s a triple irrelevant score. First, because I’m Canadian my opinions or viewership of TV shows doesn’t matter to US network executives. Secondly, because I’m outside the 18-49 demographic I might as well dry up and go away since the networks are convinced that people such as me aren’t effected by advertising and they make their money on advertising. Finally, writing criticism about TV shows might be the most irrelevant thing ever. People may make their choices of the movies they watch based on what a movie critic says (although this certainly doesn’t explain the success of things like the <i>Transformers</i> movies) but when it comes to TV they watch what they watch and don’t give a damn what professional TV watchers say. Want proof? <br /><ul><li>Exhibit A: <i>Two And A Half Men</i> is starting its <b>10th</b> season and has won <b>two</b> Emmys for acting, while <i>Firefly</i> only had 14 episodes shot, and John Noble was never nominated for an Emmy for playing Walter Bishop on <i>Fringe</i>. </li><li>Exhibit B: The fact that the ratings for the series finale of <i>Battlestar Galactica</i> were less than a quarter of the ratings for most episodes of the current season of <i>Duck Dynasty</i> (and I like Duck Dynasty, but still…).</li><li>Exhibit C: <i>Here Comes Honey Boo Boo</i>. ‘Nuff said.</li></ul><br />Despite the irrelevance of what I’m doing, and despite the fact that I don’t have the various premium services that will deliver unto me what is supposed to be the “new Golden Age” of Television, I am back to tilt at critical windmills again. I think that over the past couple of years I’ve become increasingly burned out by the process, and maybe by some of the frustrations that I just vented about. In the past I’ve tried to write through the sense of being burned out, but this summer I took the opposite approach. Except for some forum comments (mostly at the soccer management game site <a href="http://www.hattrick.org/">Hattrick.org</a>, I haven’t written a damned thing since May. We’ll see how that works won’t we.Brent McKeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14883838112004433045noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10697975.post-23852467114079009172013-05-18T05:53:00.000-06:002013-05-18T05:53:05.179-06:00The CW’s 2013-14 Schedule<a href="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-djVfKsYHFEo/UZdqY2mzEoI/AAAAAAAABYE/ehlkhuU8ZUQ/s1600-h/the_cw%25255B2%25255D.jpg"><img align="right" alt="the_cw" border="0" height="176" src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-CkqlSECBRzA/UZdqZMg8XTI/AAAAAAAABYM/MRmCs4u7qIo/the_cw_thumb.jpg?imgmax=800" style="background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; border-right: 0px; border-top: 0px; display: inline; float: right; margin: 0px 0px 11px 13px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" title="the_cw" width="244" /></a>The CW has its own standards of success that aren’t necessarily the standards of other networks. It explains why shows like <i>Gossip Girl</i> and <i>90210</i> lasted as long as they did. What is of interest is that the legitimate successes that The CW has had – shows like <i>Supernatural</i> and <i>Smallville</i> – have had a broader base that transcended the 15-34 female demographic that the network has traditionally aimed for. The network’s most recent success, <i>Arrow</i> (which even Marc Berman has described as a “winner”) has a significant appeal to people who pee standing up. This season’s line-up from The CW looks to continue this trend with it’s new line-up.<br /><br /><b>Cancelled</b> <br /><i>90210</i>, <i>Emily Owens M.D.</i>, <i>Gossip Girl</i>, <i>Cult</i><br /><br /><b>Renewed</b> <br /><i>Arrow</i>, <i>The Vampire Diaries</i>, <i>America’s Next Top Model</i><br /><br /><b>Moved</b> <br /><i>Hart of Dixie</i>, <i>Beauty And The Beast</i>, <i>Supernatural</i>, <i>The Carrie Diaries</i><b>&nbsp;</b><br /><br /><b>New Shows</b> <br /><i>The Originals</i>, <i>The Tomorrow People</i>, <i>Reign</i><br /><br /><b>Held Until Mid-Season</b> <br /><i>Nikita</i>, <i>Star Crossed</i>, <i>The 100</i>, <i>Famous In 12</i><br /><i></i><br /><br /><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>Complete Schedule</b> </span><span style="font-size: small;">(All times Eastern, New Shows in Capitals)</span><br /><span style="font-size: small;"></span><br /><br /><span style="color: red; font-size: small;"><b>Monday</b></span> <br /><span style="color: black; font-size: small;"><b>8:00</b></span><span style="color: black; font-size: small;"><b>-9:00 p.m.:</b> <i>Hart of Dixie</i> (New Day)</span><br /><span style="color: black; font-size: small;"><b>9:00-</b></span><span style="font-size: small;"><b>10:00 p.m.:</b><i> Beauty And The Beast</i> (New Day)<b>&nbsp;</b></span><br /><br /><span style="color: red; font-size: small;"><b>Tuesday</b></span> <br /><span style="color: black; font-size: small;"><b>8:00-</b></span><span style="color: black; font-size: small;"><b>9:00 p.m.:</b> <i>THE ORIGINALS</i></span><br /><span style="font-size: small;"><b>9:00-</b></span><span style="font-size: small;"><b>10:00 p.m.:</b> <i>Supernatural</i> (New Day)</span> <span style="color: red; font-size: small;"><b>&nbsp;</b></span><br /><br /><span style="color: red; font-size: small;"><b>Wednesday</b></span> <br /><span style="color: black; font-size: small;"><b>8:00-</b></span><span style="font-size: small;"><b>9:00 p.m.:</b> <i>Arrow</i></span><br /><span style="font-size: small;"><b>9:00-</b></span><span style="font-size: small;"><b>10:00 p.m.:</b> <i>THE TOMORROW PEOPLE</i><b>&nbsp;</b></span><br /><br /><span style="color: red; font-size: small;"><b>Thursday</b></span> <br /><span style="color: black; font-size: small;"><b>8:00-</b></span><span style="color: black; font-size: small;"><b>9:00 p.m.:</b> <i>The Vampire Diaries</i></span> <br /><span style="font-size: small;"><b>9:00-</b></span><span style="font-size: small;"><b>10:00 p.m.:</b> <i>REIGN</i></span> <br /><span style="color: red; font-size: small;"><b>&nbsp;</b></span><br /><span style="color: red; font-size: small;"><b>Friday</b></span> <br /><span style="color: black; font-size: small;"><b>8:00-</b></span><span style="color: black; font-size: small;"><b>9:00 p.m.:</b> <i>The Carrie Diaries </i>(New Day)</span> <br /><span style="font-size: small;"><b>9:00-10:00 p.m.:</b> <i><i>America’s Next Top Model</i></i></span><br /><br /><i>The Originals</i> is a spin-off of <i>The Vampire Diaries</i>. Klaus (Joseph Morgan) is a member of the Original Family of vampires and is the original vampire-werewolf hybrid. He returns to the supernatural melting pot of New Orleans when he hears rumours of a plot against him. In the city he encounters his former protégé Marcel (Charles Michael Davis) who wields control over human and supernatural inhabitants of the city. Determined not to answer to Marcel, Klaus together with his brother Elijah (Daniel Gillies) are determined to reclaim power in the city that their family helped create. Tensions within the supernatural factions of the city are nearing a breaking point, and Klaus and Elijah make an uneasy alliance with witches lead by the powerful Sophie (Daniella Pineda).<br /><br />According to some <i>The Tomorrow People</i> are mankind’s next evolutionary step: people with paranormal powers. Stephen Jameson (Robbie Amell) was an ordinary teen until a year ago. Then he started developing strange abilities like hearing voices and teleporting in his sleep. Listening to one of the voices, he encounters John (Luke Mitchell), Cara (Peyton List) and Russell (Aaron Yoo), the Tomorrow People. Opposing them is Ultra, a paramilitary group of scientists led by Dt. Jedikah Price (Mark Pellegrino) who see the Tomorrow People as a threat to humanity. Determined not to turn his back on humanity or abandon the world of the Tomorrow People, Stephen is determined to find his own way.<br /><br /><i>Reign</i> is the (very) fictionalized tale of the teenaged Mary Queen of Scots (Adelaide Kane) and her engagement to Prince Francis of France (Toby Regbo). Arriving in France with four ladies-in-waiting Mary (who had been Queen of Scotland since she was six days old) Mary wants to finalize the strategic alliance between France and Scotland with the arranged marriage between her and Francis (which had been arranged when she was five and he was four). Religion, court intrigue and secret agendas threaten the agreements. Francis is unsure about the Scottish Alliance and has a history with a lady in the French court, and there is Francis’s illegitimate half-brother Bash (Torrance Coombs) who has caught Mary’s eye. And of course there’s Francis’s mother Catherine de Medici (Megan Follows) who has her own agenda.<br /><br />When an alien spaceship crash landed a fierce battle erupted. In the course of the fighting a six year old Atrian child named Roman hid in a shed where a six year old human girl named Emery protected him and became his friend. That’s the beginning of <i>Star-Crossed</i>. Despite Emery’s efforts Roman is captured and sent to a heavily guarded camp known as The Sector where the Atrians are imprisoned. Now, ten years after the Atrians arrived on Earth a group of Atrian teenagers will be attending a suburban high school, including the now grown Roman (Matt Lanter). One of the human students at the school is a teenaged Emery (Aimee Teegarden) who thought Roman had been killed by the authorities. Their relationship quickly restarts but can it work in a world where both sides have small minded attitudes?<br /><br /><i>The 100</i> is a science fiction series with a youth twist. Following nuclear Armageddon on earth the only survivors of humanity are the 400 people on twelve international space stations in orbit at the time. Bringing the stations together they form The Ark. Now 97 years after the original disaster The Ark is ruled with draconian methods including capital punishment and strict population control. One hundred juvenile prisoners are ordered exiled to Earth’s surface to determine whether or not the planet is now habitable. The exiles include Clarke (Eliza Taylor) the daughter of Abby (Paige Turco), The Ark’s Chief Medical Officer, Wells (Eli Goree) who is the son of The Ark’s Chancellor Jaha (Isaiah Washington), daredevil Finn (Thomas McDonnell), and the illegal siblings Bellamy (Bob Morley) and Octavia (Marie Avgeropoulos). The Earth they find is at once magical and deadly, and they must overcome their differences to forge a new path; the fate of the human race depends on them succeeding.<br /><br />The only real way for me to describe <i>Famous In 12</i> is to quote from the CW’s press release. “There is a family in the U.S. that has what it takes to become famous - the question is: Can they pull it off in 12 weeks? That's the challenge in the new unscripted series <i>Famous In 12</i> , a unique social experiment that tracks the lives of one determined family as they move to the entertainment capital of the world - Los Angeles - and seek fame in a 12-week time frame. Members of the family will all have unique and varied talents, and they will each get a series of challenges to create a public profile fit for a Kardashian. The family will be guided by the TMZ machine, which will create a series of opportunities for them. TMZ and Harvey Levin will help, but it is up to the family to pull it off. When they succeed at their challenges, they will appear on the TMZ TV show and TMZ.com, which will raise their profile. Family members will exploit all forms of social media to wage a campaign of fame. In addition to the challenges, the family will circulate day to day... at the gym, restaurants, bars, parties and other places where celebs hang and opportunities call.”<br /><br /><b>Comments</b><br />Say what you want about The CW, they are going outside of what had been their comfort zone. The network was famous for catering to the young female market is making a sharpish turn towards Genre Programming, albeit with a youthful orientation. <i>The Originals</i> is an extension of a successful brand for The CW, being a spin-off of the popular <i>Vampire Diaries</i> series. This would seem to be a natural success for the network…at least by CW standards. Then again <i>Secret Circle</i> had at least tenuous ties to <i>Vampire Diaries</i> and it was cancelled after one season.<br /><br /><i>The Tomorrow People</i> is an attempt at a second “comic book” show alongside Arrow, although it is vaguely closer to <i>Smallville</i> in that it deals with people with super powers. Actually the closest comparison – and this has the potential to cause some troubles for the producers and the network – is with The X-Men in which you had a group of teens with mutant abilities called by some “homo superior.” Beware if a leader in a wheelchair comes to the fore. <i>Star-Crossed</i> on the other hand has a very obvious progenitor in the works of a writer whose work is long ago in public domain. The show is so obviously using Shakespeare’s <i>Romeo and Juliet</i> as a starting point that even The CW’s own press release is mentioning it. Then too it uses motifs reminiscent of the the Civil Rights movement of the 1950s and the Little Rock school integration crisis.<br /><br />The two shows that interest me the most are <i>The 100</i> and <i>Reign</i> for entirely different reasons. <i>The 100</i> is an interesting take on a post-apocalyptic society and the reclaiming of a depopulated Earth. Something similar is being done with the new Will and Jaden Smith movie <i>After Earth</i>. This might have potential or it might sink to the depths of a Terra Nova. Much depends on the approach that is taken by the writers and producers. As for <i>Reign</i>, I have to ask why anyone thought that this was a good idea? I mean admittedly it has the elements of a teen romance novel, but I’m betting that the producers are going to gloss over the facts, namely that Mary was married at 16 and widowed at 18, and that Francis was 14 when they married and was sickly, abnormally short, and stuttered (and was probably incapable of fathering children). One needs dashing figures for this sort of historical romance, while the censors would probably turn a dim eye to a story about a 16 year-old girl bedding a 14 year-old boy. By all rights, I think that <i>The 100</i> should work (at least by CW standards), and <i>Reign</i> should be an abject failure by anybody’s standards.Brent McKeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14883838112004433045noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10697975.post-80902605466636930092013-05-17T04:44:00.000-06:002013-05-17T04:55:44.222-06:00CBS’s 2013-14 Schedule<a href="http://lh6.ggpht.com/--b0DtkM7r_0/UZYHiSEOudI/AAAAAAAABXs/sWG-A4rEO5o/s1600-h/cbslogo200%25255B2%25255D.jpg"><img align="left" alt="cbslogo200" border="0" height="203" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-hVs7ensHlSY/UZYHj9fYJoI/AAAAAAAABX0/bb_3jWwTUXo/cbslogo200_thumb.jpg?imgmax=800" style="background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; border-right: 0px; border-top: 0px; display: inline; float: left; margin: 0px 13px 10px 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" title="cbslogo200" width="204" /></a>CBS is a network that has the luxury of doing things that other networks wouldn’t do, like cancelling shows that win their time periods because they didn’t win in the “right” way. Which is to say that shows didn’t retain a high enough percentage of the previous show’s audience. Or that the show didn’t draw as big an audience this year as the show in the same time slot did last year…and oh yes CBS cancelled that show last year (in that example I am thinking about the third hour of Tuesday where CBS cancelled Unforgettable last year and then cancelled <i>Golden Boy</i> this year because it didn’t draw as big an audience as <i>Unforgettable</i> did a year ago). As is the case most years, CBS is programming the lowest number of new shows and apparently think that they’re programming the best new shows.<br /><br /><b>Cancelled</b> <br /><i>CSI: New York</i>, <i>Golden Boy</i>, <i>Made In Jersey</i>, <i>Jobs</i>, <i>Partners</i>, <i>Rules of Engagement</i>,<i> Vegas</i><br /><br /><b>Renewed</b> <br /><i>How I Met Your Mother</i>, <i>2 Broke Girls</i>, <i>NCIS</i>,<i> NCIS: Los Angeles</i>, <i>Survivor</i>, <i>Criminal Minds</i>, <i>CSI</i>, <i>The Big Bang Theory</i>, <i>Two And A Half Men</i>, <i>Elementary</i>, <span style="color: black; font-size: small;"><i>Undercover Boss</i>, </span><span style="font-size: small;"><i>Blue Bloods</i></span>, <i>60 Minutes</i>, <i>The Amazing Race</i>, <span style="font-size: small;"><i>The Good Wife</i></span>, <i>The Mentalist</i><br /><br /><b>Moved</b> <br /><i>Person Of Interest</i>, <i>Hawaii Five-0</i><br /><b></b><br /><b>New Shows</b> <br /><i>We Are Men</i>, <i>Mom</i>, <i>Hostages</i>, <i>The Millers</i>, <i>The Crazy Ones</i>, <br /><br /><b>Held Until Mid-Season</b> <br /><i>Mike &amp; Molly</i>, <i>Reckless</i>, <i>Friends With Better Lives</i>,<i> Intelligence</i><br /><i></i><br /><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>Complete Schedule</b> </span><span style="font-size: small;">(All times Eastern, New Shows in Capitals, except the CSI and NCIS shows)</span><br /><span style="font-size: small;"></span><br /><span style="color: red; font-size: small;"><b>Monday</b></span> <br /><span style="color: black; font-size: small;"><b>8:00-8:30 p.m.:</b> <i>How I Met Your Mother</i></span><br /><span style="color: black; font-size: small;"><b>8:30-9:00 p.m.:</b> <i>WE ARE MEN</i></span><br /><span style="color: black; font-size: small;"><b>9:00-9:30 p.m.:</b> <i>2 Broke Girls</i></span><br /><span style="color: black; font-size: small;"><b>9:30-10:00 p.m.:</b><i>&nbsp; MOM</i></span><br /><span style="color: black; font-size: small;"></span><span style="font-size: small;"><b>10:00-11:00 p.m.:</b><i>&nbsp; HOSTAGES/ INTELLIGENCE</i></span><br /><span style="font-size: small;"></span><br /><span style="color: red; font-size: small;"><b>Tuesday</b></span> <br /><span style="color: black; font-size: small;"><b>8:00-</b></span><span style="color: black; font-size: small;"><b>9:00 p.m.:</b> <i>NCIS</i></span><br /><span style="color: black; font-size: small;"></span><span style="font-size: small;"><b>9:00-</b></span><span style="font-size: small;"><b>10:00 p.m.:</b> <i>NCIS: Los Angeles</i></span> <br /><span style="font-size: small;"><b>10:00-11:00 p.m.:</b> <i>Person Of Interest</i> (New Day and Time)</span> <br /><span style="font-size: small;"></span> <br /><span style="color: red; font-size: small;"><b>Wednesday</b></span> <br /><span style="color: black; font-size: small;"><b>8:00-</b></span><span style="font-size: small;"><b>9:00 p.m.:</b> <i>Survivor</i></span><br /><span style="font-size: small;"></span><span style="font-size: small;"><b>9:00-</b></span><span style="font-size: small;"><b>10:00 p.m.:</b> <i>Criminal Minds</i></span><br /><span style="font-size: small;"></span><span style="font-size: small;"><b>10:00-11:00 p.m.:</b> <i>CSI</i></span> <br /><span style="font-size: small;"></span> <span style="color: red; font-size: small;"><b></b></span> <br /><span style="color: red; font-size: small;"><b>Thursday</b></span> <br /><span style="color: black; font-size: small;"><b>8:00-8:30 p.m.:</b> <i>The Big Bang Theory</i></span><br /><span style="color: black; font-size: small;"><b>8:30-9:00 p.m.:</b> <i>THE MILLERS</i></span> <br /><span style="font-size: small;"><b>9:00-9:30 p.m.</b> <i>THE CRAZY ONES</i></span><br /><span style="font-size: small;"><b>9:30-10:00 p.m.:</b> <i>Two And A Half Men</i> (New Time)</span><br /><span style="font-size: small;"></span><span style="font-size: small;"><b>10:00-11:00 p.m.:</b> <i>Elementary</i></span> <br /><span style="font-size: small;"></span> <br /><span style="color: red; font-size: small;"><b>Friday</b></span> <br /><span style="color: black; font-size: small;"><b>8:00-</b></span><span style="color: black; font-size: small;"><b>9:00 p.m.:</b> <i>Undercover Boss</i></span> <br /><span style="font-size: small;"><b>9:00-10:00 p.m.:</b> <i>Hawaii Five-0</i> (New Daw and Time)</span><br /><span style="color: black; font-size: small;"><b>10:00-11:00 p.m.:</b> <i>Blue Bloods</i><b>&nbsp;</b></span><br /><br /><span style="color: red; font-size: small;"><b>Sunday</b></span> <br /><span style="color: black; font-size: small;"><b>7:00-8:00 p.m.:</b> <i>60 Minutes</i></span><br /><span style="color: black; font-size: small;"><span style="color: black; font-size: small;"></span></span><span style="color: black; font-size: small;"><b>8:00-9:00 p.m.:</b> <i>The Amazing Race</i></span><br /><span style="color: black; font-size: small;"></span><span style="font-size: small;"><b>9:00-10:00 p.m.:</b> <i>The Good Wife</i></span> <br /><span style="font-size: small;"><b>10:00-11:00 p.m.:</b> <i>The Mentalist</i></span><br /><span style="font-size: small;"><i></i></span><br /><span style="font-size: small;"><i>We Are Men</i> is about four guys living in a short term apartment complex. Carter (Chris Smith) is the youngest of the group. He was left at the altar in the middle of the ceremony and is eager to re-enter the dating game. He finds “advice” from the other three men in the group. Frank Russo (Tony Shaloub) is a successful clothing manufacturer…and a four-time divorcee who still considers himself a lady’s man. Gil Bartis (Kal Pen) is a small business owner who was caught having the world’s worst affair. Stuart Strickland (Jerry O’Connell) is an OB/GYN who is hiding assets while waiting for his second divorce to be completed. Jill (Rebecca Breeds) is Frank’s daughter, and the only good thing from his failed relationships. </span><br /><span style="font-size: small;"></span><br /><span style="font-size: small;"><i>Mom</i> is the latest series from Chuck Lorre. Anna Faris plays Christy, a newly sober single mom with two kids who works as a waitress at a posh Napa Valley restaurant. She’s four months sober but her efforts to overcome her history of bad choices and be a good mother to her kids is complicated when her mom Bonnie (Allison Janney), herself a recovering alcoholic re-enters her life, full of passive-aggressive insights into all of Christy’s mistakes. She’s just another member of Christy’s dubious support circle, which includes her “16 going on 25 year-old” daughter Violet (Sadie Calvano), her overly honest son Roscoe (Blake Garrett Rosenthal), Christy’s irresponsible ex-husband (and Roscoe’s father) Baxter (Matt Jones), her married boss – and lover – Gabriel (Nate Cordry) and the restaurant’s hot-tempered chef Rudy (French Stewart). </span><br /><span style="font-size: small;"></span><br /><span style="font-size: small;">In <i>The Millers</i> Will Arnett is roving news reporter Nathan Miller. Newly divorced he’s looking forward to living the single life, but fate intervenes. After he finally tells his parents about the divorce his father Tom (Beau Bridges) is inspired to leave his wife of 43 years. Nathan’s life is turned upside down when his mother Carol (Margo Martindale) decides to move in with him. Meanwhile absent-minded Tom imposes on Nathan’s sister Debbie, her husband Adam and their daughter Mykayla (Eve Moon). Even Nathan’s cameraman Ray (JB Smoove), who was looking forward to being Nathan’s wingman finds his style cramped by Carol. Nathan and Debbie are left to wonder how long the awkward adjustment phase is going to last, and how to deal with their impossible parents in the meantime.</span><br /><span style="font-size: small;"></span><br /><span style="font-size: small;"><i>The Crazy Ones</i> marks Robin Williams’s return to series TV, i<span style="font-size: small;">n a show</span> produced by David E. Kelly. Williams plays Simon Roberts, the head of a powerful ad agency that woks with some of the biggest brands in the world. His biggest thing for him though is that his partner is his daughter Sydney (Sarah Michelle Gellar). The two are polar opposites; while Simon is unpredictable and given to unorthodox methods, Sydney is focused, organized and eager to make a name for herself. All while parenting her father.</span><br /><span style="font-size: small;"></span><br /><span style="font-size: small;">The latest Jerry Bruckheimer series to come to CBS is <i>Hostages</i>. Rogue FBI Agent Duncan Carlisle (Dylan McDermott) takes surgeon Ellen Sanders (Toni Collete) and her family captive in their home. Carlisle orders Ellen to kill the President of the United States (James Naughton) when she operates on him in order to save her overbearing husband Brian (Tate Donavon), secretive daughter Morgan (Quinn Shepherd) and not so innocent son Jake (Mateus Ward). Working with Duncan are his brother-in-law Kramer (Rhys Coiro) whose loyalties will be tested, intimidating ex-military man Archer (Billy Brown) and the mysterious last minute replacement Sandrine (Sandrine Holt). </span><br /><br />In <i>Intelligence</i>, Gabriel (Josh Hollaway) is the first human to be directly connected to the electronic grid through a super computer chip implanted in his head. he has access to the Internet, wi-fi, telephone and satellite data. He’s an operative of Cybercom, a government agency headed by Director Lillian Strand (Marg Helgenberger) a straightforward and efficient boss who oversees the unit’s mission. Secret Service agent Riley Neal (Meghan Ory) is assigned to protect Gabriel, not just from foreign threats but from his own appetite for reckless unpredictable behaviour. The designer of the chip is Dr. Shenandoah Cassidy (John Billingsley) whose son Nelson (PJ Byrne) is jealous of the prominent place Gabriel has in his father’s life.<br /><br />A Southern lawyer from Charleston and a litigator from Chicago must hide their simmering attraction when a police sex scandal threatens to overtake the city in <i>Reckless</i>. Jamie Sawyer (Anna Wood) is the cool confident and street-smart Chicago&nbsp; defense attorney while Roy Rader (Cam Gigandet) is the Charleston-born City Attorney who owes his position to his influential former father-in-law Dec Fortnum (Gregory Harrison). When disgraced former cop Lee Ann Marcus (Georgina Haig) comes to Jamie to ask her to represent her in a lawsuit against the police department, Jamie and Roy soon discover that the case will uncover a sinister case within the police department. The department is headed by Deputy Chief Holland Knox (Michael Gladis) a family man who exudes integrity. But is he what he seems, and are the people around him, including Jamie’s boyfriend Preston Cruz (Adam Rodriguez) implicated in the corruption that is about to come out?<br /><br /><i>Friends With Better Lives</i> is a new comedy about a group of six friends at various stages of their lives who, while outwardly happy, can’t help but wonder if maybe their friends have it better than they do. Andi (Majandra Delfino) and Bobby (Kevin Conolly) are happily married with two kids…but at time long for the days when they had more fun and less responsibility. Will (James Van Der Beek) is recently divorced and preaching the bachelor lifestyle…but still yearns for his ex-wife. Jules (Brooklyn Decker) and Lowell (Rick Donald) are high on their newly engaged status. Kate (Zoe Lister Jones) is single and has a successful career, but is not going to react well when she discovers that her one remaining single friend, Jules, is engaged.<br /><br /><b>Comments</b><br />The schedule that CBS announced is quite a departure for the network which has generally ignored the ongoing story type series for shows with self-contained episodes. And I think it can be argued that part of the reason for the network’s success in recent years is that model, which allows shows to be repeated, often out of sequence, which has allowed those shows to build audience where shows that have a tight sequential storyline can be repeated as readily. Two of the three dramas that CBS will be debuting this year have that sequential storyline as a key aspect. Admittedly <i>Hostages</i> appears to have been set up as a limited run series – I’m not sure what they can do for an encore after the series completes its run in January or February – but it seems to be a poor way to program a network if one of your big series can’t build on any success it might have. The description of <i>Reckless</i> at least holds a bit of promise beyond the initial storyline of the series. As for Intelligence, it is probably the most self-contained and therefore repeatable of the three dramas, but because of the subject matter it might be difficult to sell to the public who already isn’t in love with midseason series.<br /><br />The comedies seem to be a mixed bag, which is a bit of a problem since CBS is making a big comedy push this season. The plot summary of <i>We Are Men</i> reminds me of a number of shows including <i>Carpoolers</i>, <i>Welcome To The Captain</i>, and <i>Happy Hour</i>. The common thread is that they were all dreary and they all died quickly. <i>The Millers</i> boasts an incredible cast, in Beau Bridges, Will Arnett and Margo Martindale and because of that it may have a shot but the premise of divorcing parents making their adult kids’ lives hell isn’t necessarily appealing (but remember I’m a guy who at best is lukewarm about comedies). Similarly <i>Mom</i> from Chuck Lorre goes to a pretty dark place and I’m not convinced that the great cast can do anything to make that more appealing. <i>Friends With Better Lives</i> just sounds like a tired concept that we’ve seen done before with a group of friends who are envious of what the others have. The one comedy that I’m interested in is <i>The Crazy Ones</i>, and that is mainly because I’m interested in seeing how Sarah Michelle Gellar will do playing off of Robin Williams. It could be a train wreck – which is what a lot of people commenting about the preview clip on YouTube seem to expect – or it could be great. I’m hoping for great because I think CBS could use some great with this line-up.Brent McKeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14883838112004433045noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10697975.post-63054215393795570222013-05-14T05:39:00.000-06:002013-05-17T05:14:25.078-06:00NBC’s 2013-14 Season<a href="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-pbptrutgBXk/UZIekh298JI/AAAAAAAABXU/r1SXdrJnqwE/s1600-h/NBC_logo%25255B2%25255D.jpg"><img align="right" alt="NBC_logo" border="0" height="154" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-j6JN3shZJ4c/UZIelJL0KFI/AAAAAAAABXc/1B9DND6luUg/NBC_logo_thumb.jpg?imgmax=800" style="background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; border-right: 0px; border-top: 0px; display: inline; float: right; margin: 0px 0px 10px 12px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" title="NBC_logo" width="154" /></a>NBC was the first network to announce their new schedule on Sunday, following a precedent that they had set last year (and which I completely forgot about). The network, which was once the premiere broadcast network has had significant troubles this season, and indeed in previous seasons. Based on initial impressions, while there may be some good shows in the mix here, this isn’t a line-up that is going to vault NBC back into first place… or second, or maybe even third.<br /><br /><b>Cancelled</b><br /><i>30 Rock</i>, <i>Animal Practice</i>, <i>Do No Harm</i>, <i>The Office</i>, <i>Deception</i>, <i>Up All Night</i>, <i>1600 Penn</i>, <i>Guys With Kids</i>, <i>Whitney</i>, <i>Go On</i>, <i>New Normal</i>, <i>Smash</i>, <i>Rock Center</i><br /><br /><b>Renewed</b><br /><i>Chicago Fire</i>, <i>Grimm</i>, <i>Law &amp; Order: SVU</i>, <i>The Voice</i>, <i>Parks And Recreation</i>, <i>Community</i>, <br /><br /><b>Moved</b><br /><i>Biggest Loser</i>, <i>Revolution</i>, <i>Parenthood</i><b>&nbsp;</b><br /><br /><b>Fate To Be Determined</b><br /><i>Hannibal, Betty White's Off Their Rockers, Fashion Star</i><b>&nbsp;</b><br /><br /><b>New Shows</b><br /><i>The Blacklist</i>, <i>Ironside</i>, <i>Welcome To The Family</i>, <i>Sean Saves The World</i>, <i>The Michael J. Fox Show</i>, <i>Dracula</i><b>&nbsp;</b><br /><br /><b>Held Until Mid-Season</b><br /><i>The Family Guide</i>, <i>About A Boy</i>, <i>Crossbones</i>, <i>American Dream Builders</i>, <i>Believe</i>, <i>Crisis</i>, <i>Celebrity Apprentice</i>, <i>Chicago P.D.</i>, <i>The Night Shift</i>, <i>Undateable</i>, <i>Food Fighters</i>, <i>The Million Second Quiz</i>, <i>Sing-Off</i><br /><br /><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>Complete Schedule</b> </span><span style="font-size: small;">(All times Eastern, New Shows in Capitals)</span><br /><span style="font-size: small;"></span><br /><span style="color: red; font-size: small;"><b>Monday</b></span><br /><span style="color: black; font-size: small;"><b>8:00-10:00 p.m.:</b> The Voice</span><br /><span style="font-size: small;"><b>10:00-11:00 p.m.:</b> <i>THE BLACKLIST</i></span><br /><br /><span style="color: red; font-size: small;"><b>Tuesday</b></span><br /><span style="color: black; font-size: small;"><b>8:00-9:00 p.m.:</b> <i>The Biggest Loser</i></span><br /><span style="font-size: small;"><b>9:00-10:00 p.m.:</b> <i>The Voice</i> (results) (New Time)</span><br /><span style="font-size: small;"><b>10:00-11:00 p.m.:</b> <i>Chicago Fire</i> (New Day &amp; Time)</span><br /><br /><span style="color: red; font-size: small;"><b>Wednesday</b></span><br /><span style="color: black; font-size: small;"><b>8:00-9:00 p.m.:</b> <i>Revolution</i> (New Day &amp; Time)</span><br /><span style="font-size: small;"><b>9:00-10:00 p.m.:</b> <i>Law &amp; Order: SVU</i></span><br /><span style="font-size: small;"><b>10:00-11:00 p.m.:</b> <i>IRONSIDE</i></span><br /><br /><span style="color: red; font-size: small;"><b>Thursday</b></span><br /><span style="color: black; font-size: small;"><b>8:00-8:30 p.m.:</b> <i>Parks &amp; Recreation</i> (New Time)</span><br /><span style="font-size: small;"><b>8:30-9:00 p.m.:</b> <i>WELCOME TO THE FAMILY</i></span><br /><span style="font-size: small;"><b>9:00-9:30 p.m.:</b> <i>SEAN SAVES THE WORLD</i></span><br /><span style="font-size: small;"><b>9:30-10:00 p.m.:</b> <i>MICHAEL J. FOX SHOW</i></span><br /><span style="font-size: small;"><b>10:00-11:00 p.m.:</b> <i>Parenthood</i></span><br /><br /><span style="color: red; font-size: small;"><b>Friday</b></span><br /><span style="color: black; font-size: small;"><b>8:00-9:00 p.m.:</b> <i>Dateline NBC</i></span><br /><span style="font-size: small;"><b>9:00-10:00 p.m.:</b> <i>Grimm</i></span><br /><span style="font-size: small;"><b>10:00-11:00 p.m.:</b> <i>DRACULA</i></span><br /><br /><span style="color: red; font-size: small;"><b>Sunday</b></span><br /><span style="color: black; font-size: small;"><b>7:00-8:15 p.m.:</b> <i>Football Night In America</i></span><br /><span style="font-size: small;"><b>8:15 p.m.-11:00 p.m.:</b> <i>Sunday Night Football</i>&nbsp;</span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: small;">At Mid-Season<b>&nbsp;</b></span><br /><br /><span style="color: red; font-size: small;"><b>Tuesday</b></span><br /><span style="color: black; font-size: small;"><b>8:00-9:00 p.m.:</b> <i>The Voice</i> (results) (New Time)</span><br /><span style="font-size: small;"><b>9:00-9:30 p.m.:</b> <i>ABOUT A BOY</i></span><br /><b>9:30-10:00 p.m.:</b> <i>FAMILY GUIDE</i><br /><span style="font-size: small;"><b>10:00-11:00 p.m.:</b> <i>Chicago Fire</i> (New Day &amp; Time)<b>&nbsp;</b></span><br /><br /><span style="color: red; font-size: small;"><b>Friday</b></span><br /><span style="color: black; font-size: small;"><b>8:00-9:00 p.m.:</b> <i>Dateline NBC</i></span><br /><span style="font-size: small;"><b>9:00-10:00 p.m.:</b> <i>Grimm</i></span><br /><span style="font-size: small;"><b>10:00-11:00 p.m.:</b> <i>CROSSBONES</i><b>&nbsp;</b></span><br /><br /><span style="color: red; font-size: small;"><b>Sunday</b></span><br /><span style="color: black; font-size: small;"><b>7:00-8:00 p.m.:</b> <span style="color: black; font-size: small;"><i>Dateline NBC</i></span></span><br /><span style="color: black; font-size: small;"><b>8:00-9:00 p.m.:</b> <i>AMERICAN DREAM BUILDERS</i></span><br /><span style="font-size: small;"><b>9:00-10:00 p.m.:</b> <i>BELIEVE</i></span><br /><span style="font-size: small;"><b>10:00-11:00 p.m.:</b> <i>CRISIS</i></span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: small;"><i>The Blacklist</i> doesn’t look back at the McCarthy era blacklisting in the entertainment industry. Instead it is about former Government agent Raymond “Red” Reddington (James Spader). For years Red has been on the FBI’s most wanted list for his shadowy dealings with criminals that has led him to be called “The Concierge of Crime.” Suddenly he surrenders to the FBI with an explosive offer: he will help the Government to capture an infamous terrorist. His only condition is that he’ll only speak to Liz Keene (Megan Boone), a profiler who has just graduated from Quantico. He has a complete blacklist of people he’s willing to help bring down, but only if he continues to work with Liz. Why is this woman, with whom he apparently has no connection, so important for Red?</span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: small;">NYPD detective Robert <i>Ironside</i> (Blair Underwood) is a fearless cop who is determined to bring the guilty to justice and isn’t going to let the fact that a bullet shattered his spine two years ago and put him in a wheelchair slow him down. Supported by his team of specialists – Virgil (Pablo Schreiber), Holly (Spencer Grammer), and Teddy (Neal Bledsoe) – as well as his former partner Gary (Brent Sexton) and boss Detective Ed Rollins (Kenneth Choi), Iroonside is determined not to let being in a wheelchair slow him down.<i>&nbsp;</i></span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: small;"><i>Welcome To The Family</i> explores what happens when two very different families become in-laws. Dan (Mike O’Malley) and Karina (Mary McCormack) Yoder discover that their college-bound daughter Molly (Ella Rae Peck) is pregnant, and that she plans to marry the baby’s father. He’s Junior Hernandez (Joseph Haro) from East LA, and his parents Miguel (Ricardo Chavira) and Lisette (Justina Machado) are upset by (according to the show’s press release) the prospect of having “Caucasians in the family.” Once they realise that their kids are serious about marrying the two families start to come to terms with their new circumstances.<i>&nbsp;</i></span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: small;"><i>Sean Saves The World</i> stars Sean Hayes as a divorced gay dad who has a lot to juggle including work, the employees who are under him, his pushy mother (Linda Lavin) and weekends with his teenaged daughter Ellie (Sami Isler). When Ellie moves in permanently with him, he is determined to be the best father ever. Unfortunately the new owners of the company where he works want Sean and his team to work longer hours destroying his carefully planned efforts with Ellie. which is actually fine with her, since he’s obviously going overboard.<i>&nbsp;</i></span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: small;"><i>The Michael J. Fox Show</i> stars Fox in a story that parallels his own life to a degree. Five years ago New York’s most beloved TV news anchors, Mike Henry (Fox) put his career on hold to focus on his health and spending time with his family after being diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. Now, with the kids growing up and Mike feeling restless it might be time to get him back to work. His old boss Harris Green (Wendell Pierce) never wanted to let him go in the first place so he’ll jump to get him back. The trick is – as it always was with Mike – to make him think it was his own idea.</span><br /><br />Set in the late 19th century <span style="font-size: small;"><i>Dracula</i> features Jonathon Rhys Myers as the mysterious Dracula. Posing as an American entrepreneur who wants to bring modern science to Victorian London, Dracula is particularly interested in electricity and the promise of the electric light as a way to lighten the darkness. He has a deeper mission however; to take revenge on those who cursed him with immortality centuries before. All seems to be going according to plan, right up until he meets a woman who appears to be the reincarnation of his long dead wife.<i>&nbsp;</i></span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: small;"><i>About A Boy</i> is an adaptation of the movie that starred Hugh Grant. Will Freeman (David Walton) wrote a hit song which allows him to enjoy a life of “free time, free love and freedom from financial woes.” When needy single mom Fiona (Minnie Driver) and her 11 year-old son Marcus (Benjamin Stockham) move in next door it is disruptive to his lifestyle, particularly when Marcus starts dropping in unannounced. Will isn’t sure he’s too keen on being the kid’s new best friend…until he discovers that women find single fathers irresistible. The strike an arrangement where Marcus gets to chill at Will’s place in return for pretending to be his son. In time Will finds himself looking forward to those visits and looking out for the kid.<i>&nbsp;</i></span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: small;"><i>Family Guide</i> is a comedy about how a divorce can draw a family together. Mel Fisher (J.K. Simmons) has never let his blindness slow him down, be it chopping down trees, teaching his daughter Katie (Ava Deluca-Verley) how to drive or tossing the football around with his son Henry (Eli Baker). When Mel shows up with Elvis, his new guide dog, Henry feels displaced; he’s always been his dad’s eyes ears and wingman. That’s how he finds out that Mel and his pip-smoking wife Joyce (Parker Posey) are getting a divorce. The adult Henry (voice-over provided by series Executive Producer Jason Bateman) tells us that the split would “allow all of us to finally discover who we needed to be.”</span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: small;">The year is 1715 and the Bahamian island of New Providence is the location for <i>Crossbones</i>. New Providence is “the first functioning democracy in the New World,” The island is part shantytown, part marauders’ paradise ruled over by Edward Teach aka the pirate Blackbeard (John Malkovich).&nbsp; Undercover assassin Tom Lowe is sent to take the brilliant and charismatic Blackbeard down, but the more he’s exposed to the man and the place the more he comes to admire Blackbeard’s political idealism. But Lowe is not the only threat; Blackbeard has many villainous enemies and a weakness for a passionately driven woman. </span><br /><span style="font-size: small;"></span><br /><span style="font-size: small;"><i>American Dream Builders</i> is a reality competition in which America’s leading designers, builders, architects, and landscapers will be challenged to complete extreme home renovations. Each week host Nate Berkus and a panel of experts will determine which team achieved the best results. The losing team will send one member home until the final two compete. The will each design and renovate a home after which the viewing audience will vote for the winner. Two viewers will win the houses that were renovated in the final challenge.</span><br /><span style="font-size: small;"></span><br /><span style="font-size: small;">In <i>Believe</i> 10 year-old orphan Bo (Johnny Sequoyah) has amazing gifts that she doesn’t understand or fully no how to control; gifts like levitation, telekinesis, the ability to control nature and the ability to predict the future. She has been protected by a group called the True Believers against those who would use her for their own gain, but as she’s aged her powers and the threat have grown stronger. The group decide that Bo needs a permanent protector and break wrongly convicted death row inmate Tate (Jake McLaughlin) out of prison to fill that role. Together Tate and Bo travel from city to city changing both the places they visit and the people they meet. Kyle MacLachlan and Delroy Lindo also star.</span><br /><span style="font-size: small;"></span><br /><span style="font-size: small;"><i>Crisis</i> is sparked when a school field trip from the elite Ballard School in Washington D.C. is ambushed and the students and teachers are taken hostage by a vengeful mastermind. The teens are the children of industry CEOs, political movers and shakers, international diplomats and even the son of the President of the United States. The question arises of what you would be willing to do or to become in order to save your child’s life. The very power of the people involved results in the unthinkable scenario grows to become a national crisis. Stars include Gillian Anderson, Dermot Mulroney, Lance Gross and Rachel Taylor.</span><br /><span style="font-size: small;"></span><br /><span style="font-size: small;"><i></i></span><br /><span style="font-size: small;"><i>Chicago PD </i>is a spin-off from the popular <i>Chicago Fire</i> and looks at the two two distinct groups within Chicago’s Police District 21; the uniformed cops who deal with day to day crimes, and the Intelligence Unit which deals with major offences including organized crime, drug dealing and high-profile murders. The Intelligence Unit is commanded by Sgt. Hank Voight, a man who is not above skirt the law in pursuit of justice. Detective Antonio Dawson (Jon Seda) has a troubled history with his demanding boss, but he harbours ambitions of commanding the unit someday so he’s prepared to persevere.</span><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;"></span><br /><div align="left"><i>The Night Shift</i> is a medical drama that pits the need to save lives against the economic realities of running a hospital. T.C. Callahan (Eoin Mackin) is a former military doctor who has returned from a deployment in the Middle East and is about to find that the toughest battles are the ones at home. He works the late shift at San Antonio Memorial Hospital along with his military colleagues Topher (Ken Leung) and Drew (Brendan Fehr). They are confronted with the new night shift boss Michael Ragosa (Freddy Rodriguez), a bureaucrat who is more interested in cutting costs than saving lives, and his second in command Jordan Santos, who just happens to be T.C.’s former fiancee, who has to try to keep him in line, not the easiest task around.</div><div align="left"></div><div align="left"><br /><i>Undateable</i> is the name that slacker Danny Beeman (Chris D’Elia) gives to his new roommate Justin (Brent Morin) and his romantically challenged friends. Seeing himself as “the ultimate player,” Danny decides to teach them everything he knows about “the game of love.” According to the press release for the show this is, “a refreshing comedy about the ‘dos’ ‘don’ts’ and ‘duhs’ of dating.”</div><div align="left"><br /></div><div align="left">The best way for me to explain <i>The Million Second Quiz</i> is to pull straight from the network press release: “’<i>The Million Second Quiz</i>’ is a state-of-the-art, electrifying new live competition where contestants test the limits of their knowledge, endurance and will to win as they battle each other in intense bouts of trivia for 12 consecutive days and nights. Live from a gigantic hourglass shaped structure in the heart of Manhattan, this setting will also serve as the living quarters of the reigning champions - the four players who have remained in the game the longest. The show will be the first fully convergent television experience, where viewers will be able to play along at home in real time and sync to the live primetime broadcast. When the million seconds draw to a close, the champions will battle it out and the ultimate winner could claim an unprecedented cash prize of up to $10 million.”</div><div align="left"><br /></div><div align="left">Food Fighters pits home cooks against five professional chefs. The amateur cooks will produce their signature dishes which the professionals will not only try to make but will try to improve them as judged by a dinner party made up of the American public. Each victory by the amateurs will increase the amount of the prize money.</div><div align="left"><br /></div><div align="center"><span style="font-size: x-small;"></span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>Comments:</b> If you were keeping track you would notice that NBC cancelled all but two of the series that they announced last year at this time. Some lingered long enough to build a bit of an audience, others died so quick that you might not have noticed, and I think at least one might never have seen the light of day. All of the comedies that the network thought would take over from low rated but critically successful shows like <i>The Office</i>, <i>Parks &amp; Recreation</i>, 30 Rock, and <i>Community</i> have fallen by the wayside. Of the two shows that survived I think it can be argued that NBC squandered the success of <i>Revolution</i> by interrupting the series for a substantial period in the winter when <i>Deception</i> ran and failed to win an audience. I have to wonder if <i>Revolution</i> might be the next <i>Heroes</i>; a show that started hot but quickly fell apart.</span></div><div align="left"><br /><span style="font-size: small;">There is nothing in the new comedy line-up that is as egregiously and obviously bad as last year’s first cancellation, <i>Animal Practice</i> although my enthusiasm for both <i>Welcome To The Family</i> and <i>Sean Saves The World</i> are limited. In the case of the latter it may be just because my tolerance for Sean Hayes as he was in Will &amp; Grace is very low. Welcome to the Family reminds me of a Canadian show from the ‘70s that&nbsp; I’ve mentioned here in the past <i>Pardon My French</i>, but that show set up the premise without going with the teen pregnancy route. And I didn’t like the line in the press release about “Caucasians in the family.” Perhaps the gem of the Fall comedies is <i>the Michael J. Fox Show</i> (because who doesn’t like Michael J. Fox) but much depends on what they give him to work with.Turning to the mid-season comedies, About A Boy takes the premise from a good movie so we’re going to want to see how NBC manages to screw it up (which I fully expect them to do, sadly). And I don’t know what to think about <i>Family Guide</i>. There are a few elements that remind me of the premise of <i>The Wonder Years</i> but in all honesty I just don’t have much of a feel for it.</span></div><div align="left"><br /><span style="font-size: small;">The dramas are a really mixed bag. The two shows slated for Friday night – <i>Dracula</i> and <i>Crossbones</i> – have me shaking my head in amazement. They remind me of <i>Pan Am</i> and <i>The Playboy Club </i>(or maybe even <i>Kings</i>) in how far away from what American network television does they are. Shows like these might work on cable – indeed the History Channel has had some success with <i>Vikings</i> – but I don’t see it working here. Then again the shows are following Grimm on Friday night so they might develop a following. I think you could include <i>Believe</i> in that list as well except that there’s something about it that that could resonate with the public in the same way that <i>Highway to Heaven</i> or <i>Touched By An Angel</i> did years ago.</span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-size: x-small;"></span></div><div align="left"><br /></div>NBC has a number of procedurals on tap which might help to improve their lot over the season. The one that holds a lot of interest for me is The Blacklist. The first meeting of Reddington with Liz Keene has a strong resemblance to the first time that Clarice Starling encounters Hannibal Lecter in <i>Silence Of The Lambs</i>. Reviving <i>Ironside</i> is an interesting idea, but I don’t really know that we need a new version of the classic, particularly when they strip away one of the show’s best elements: San Francisco.Certainly Blair Underwood is no Raymond Burr. As for <i>Chicago PD</i>, the cynical side of me sees the show as Dick Wolf getting back to what he`s most comfortable with after briefly going off in another direction with <i>Chicago Fire</i>. I’ll hazard a guess and suggest that the <i>Chicago PD</i> cops will have no more of a life outside their precinct than the cops on <i>Law &amp; Order</i> did.<br /><br />I want to tackle <i>Crisis</i> on it’s own. The obvious question to ask about this show is, “what do they do for an encore.” Or is this a big 22 (or however many) episode mini-series masquerading as a regular series with the potential to be renewed if it catches the attention of the audience. Oh well, anything to get Gillian Anderson back on TV in North America.<br /><br /><b>Special note:</b> This should have been out much sooner than it was. My Internet and Cable TV were down for four hours on Monday which means that I wasn’t able to get the information I needed to complete this article. To get back on track I will be holding the FOX upfront material back until after The CW presents on Thursday.Brent McKeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14883838112004433045noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10697975.post-54742611208667110642013-01-24T03:29:00.000-06:002013-01-24T03:29:55.909-06:00Imitation Cheese<a href="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-8g3nY7IFoB0/UQD-Y2GaB3I/AAAAAAAABWg/zWiTMb8Cjvg/s1600-h/The_Taste%25255B2%25255D.jpg"><img align="left" alt="The_Taste" border="0" height="139" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-B2StGsd_WiU/UQD-ZQKLQ8I/AAAAAAAABWo/lgLM-Fj0-4c/The_Taste_thumb.jpg?imgmax=800" style="background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; border-right: 0px; border-top: 0px; display: inline; float: left; margin: 2px 11px 12px 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" title="The_Taste" width="244" /></a>There are some shows where you can just picture the “elevator pitch” made to the network. Take the new ABC reality competition series <i>The Taste</i> for example. I imagine the elevator pitch went something like this:<br /><br /><blockquote><i>Producer type</i>: I’ve got a great idea for a new reality-competition series.<br /><i>Programming Executive type</i>: Give me the elevator pitch and remember my office is on the third floor.<br /><i>Producer type</i>: It’s exactly like <i>The Voice</i> except – and this is going to blow you away – instead of singers judging and mentoring singers we get chefs to judge and mentor cooks.<br /><i>Programming Executive type</i>: My God that is <i>BRILLIANT</i>!!!! Come to my office immediately and I will throw huge amounts of money at you to make it and then we’ll work out the details.</blockquote><br />I’m pretty sure it went like that because The Taste is exactly that, a blatant rip-off of The Voice where four professionals in the food industry – Chef and TV host Anthony Bourdain, Chef Ludo Lefebvre, TV food goddess Nigella Lawson, and Chef and restaurateur Brian Malarkey – do blind tastings of a spoon-sized portion of a cook’s food.<br /><br />The premiere of the show, which aired Tuesday January 22nd, was one of two audition shows that are being done for the series, but the principle behind it becomes very clear very fast. Each of the four judges will pick four of the cooks who auditioned for the show (and presumably made it past some sort of screening process). They will then mentor and advise their team of four in how to prepare food, probably involving a different ingredient or style each week. Then, after the training sessions the contestants will cook their food which will be presented to the judge/mentors in random order. They’ll then decide which one or ones they like the least and eliminate them. They make a big point of the notion that because this is a blind tasting it is possible that they could vote to eliminate one of their own team members.<br /><br />So far I’ve only seen the first, two hour, audition episode of this show. It gave us the usual assortment of characters; arrogant professionals, people looking to step up their reputations to a higher level by appearing on TV, home cooks with varying levels of skills, the plucky underdog who cooks like a dream, and of course the idiots who inform us that, “I quit my job to do this…” which in most cases on this show and just about every other show of this type is a kiss of death because you ain’t going to go any further than the audition. Everyone has a story, like the guy who works in a sewage treatment plant (he didn’t get on the show), the self-described tattooed Asian lesbian who is the personal chef to Charlie Sheen and who actually said when she was picked to be one of the final 16, “<i>Winning!</i>” Two of my favourites – for entirely different reasons (and in the case of this show, favourite is a relative term for reasons that will become obvious if they haven’t already) – who went through to the mentoring period are an arrogant and prickly older woman who took offense to one of the other contestants asking her a question about what she was doing (she was picked by Bourdain), and a young home cook from Mississippi who is the very definition of “plucky underdog. She lives in a mobile home with a stove that consistently sets off the smoke detector but somehow managed to produce a flourless chocolate cake and a pistachio brittle that blew all four judges away although only Nigella decided to pick her for her team. I can already picture both of them in the final episode.<br /><br /><i>The Taste</i> isn’t good TV. It’s a lazy concept model based on the popularity of TV cooking competitions on channels like The Food Network or like <i>Hell’s Kitchen</i> and <i>Masterchef</i>, and of course the blind judging element of The Voice. They seem to be missing the point however. The shows on The Food Network are on a specialty network and the competitions have their own dynamic suited to the channel. <i>Hell’s Kitchen</i> survives not because of the cooking but because of the combative nature of the show’s contestants as well as it’s charismatic host and judge, Gordon Ramsay. <i>Masterchef</i> has some of those qualities – in smaller doses – but also has the personalities of the contestants. So far at least <i>The Taste</i> has none of the qualities that elevates those other shows. Even the raves and the snarky remarks by the judges fail to give this show a zip or a personality.<br /><br />From my perspective <i>The Taste</i> is both a pale imitation of a fairly original concept and more than a bit cheesy in it’s execution. And I might have described it as the worst reality show to debut in the second half of the 2012-13 TV season except for one thing: the series that will follow <i>The Taste</i> is <i>Celebrity Diving</i>. Shoot me now!Brent McKeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14883838112004433045noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10697975.post-82499468143235087982013-01-22T05:31:00.000-06:002013-01-22T05:32:46.497-06:00An ApologyI seem to apologize a lot on this blog and most of the time those apologies are about my not posting on a more regular basis. This isn’t going to be any different, so I suppose I should apologize for that first. <br /><br />(Hey, I’m Canadian. apologizing is in our genetic make up. Step on a Canadian’s foot and he or she will apologize for having their foot in a place where you were able to step on it.)<br /><br />So I haven’t posted anything here since the piece on the first drama to be cancelled and before that postings were pretty sparse as well. Here’s what’s been going on. In addition to the usual household chores and doing the shopping for my elderly mother and myself, the months from August to the end of November were a stressful time for me as I had to cope with my dog, Chelsea, getting ill. I was quite frankly engaged in a process whereby hope was confronting reality in that I desperately hoped that she had something that her body could overcome when deep down in my guts that whatever it was was something she wasn’t going to recover from. I’m afraid that she probably suffered longer than was necessary because I simply didn’t want to acknowledge what should have been obvious, that she probably had cancer and wasn’t going to get better. At the end of November my brother and I took Chelsea to the vet to be put to sleep. <br /><br />Probably no more than a week after that visit to the vet I got something that was suspiciously like the flu. It was the first time in years that I’ve vomited without inducing it myself. I thought I had overcome the illness after a few days and went back to my normal activities. I hadn’t. After one trip downtown to do some Christmas shopping I was basically out of it for the next ten days or so. It was so bad I quite literally completed my Christmas shopping as the store I was in was closing on Christmas Eve.<br /><br />Of course all of this is ignoring maybe the biggest problem I’ve had in writing the blog and that is quite simply in motivating myself to do the writing in the first place. I’ll start off writing something and find that it is taking me much longer to put my thoughts in order than I had thought it would. I have several half-completed reviews of shows that are going to remain exactly that: half completed. The good news – I hope – is that I think maybe I’m about to come out of my creative funk and put some stuff together that I can be at least a little bit proud of. I’ve got a couple of ideas that will take me beyond the realm of pure review as well. Time, I guess, will tell whether or not I’m right about this. Or maybe it’s another case of hope confronting reality.Brent McKeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14883838112004433045noreply@blogger.com4